THE 
RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


In  Preparation 
BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

RUSSIAN   POETS  AND 
POEMS 

FROM  THE  START  TO  THE  PRESENT  DAY 


THE    RUSSIANS 

AND  THEIR   LANGUAGE 


BY 

MADAME    N.    JARINTZOV 


WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION 

DISCUSSING  THE  PROBLEMS  OF  PRONUNCIATION 
AND  TRANSLITERATION 


AND  A  PREFACE 

BY 

NEVILL   FORBES 

Reader  in  Russian  in  the  University  of  Oxford 


NEW    YORK 

MITCHELL   KENNERLEY 
1916 


PRF.cr:oVAT!ON 
COPY  ADDED 
ORIGINAL  TO  BE 
RETAINED 


N*  2  2  1993 


TO  MY  FRIEND 

EDWARD   STANHOPE   KITCHIN,  PH.D. 

TO  WHOSE  KEEN   INTEREST  IN 
THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  MY   MOTHER-TONGUE 

THIS  LITTLE  WORK 
IS   INDEBTED  FOR   ITS  APPEARANCE 


PREFACE 

THE  appearance  of  this  volume  at  the  present 
moment  is  so  apposite  that  any  prefatory  or 
explanatory  remarks  are  really  superfluous,  all 
the  more  so  that  the  authoress  is  already  known 
in  this  country  by  her  excellent  writings  on  Russia 
which  have  appeared  in  the  course  of  the  last 
few  years.  It  has,  however,  been  suggested  that 
something  may  be  usefully  said  as  to  some  purposes 
which,  amongst  others,  this  book  may  serve.  In 
the  first  place,  it  is  something  really  new,  being  an 
exposition  of  Russian  psychology  illustrated  by 
examples  of  the  Russian  language.  One  often 
hears  said  by  those  who  have  read  translations 
of  Russian  works,  or  books  written  in  English 
about  Russia,  that  they  do  not  yet  understand 
Russian  psychology.  To  that  it  may  be  answered 
that  it  is  very  difficult  to  understand  Russian 
psychology  without  knowing,  at  any  rate,  some- 
thing of  the  Russian  language.  Translations  of 
Russian  books  are  sometimes  inexact,  and  books 
about  Russia  are  sometimes  one-sided.  The  fact 
that  this  book  on  Russia,  Russian,  and  Russians 
is  written  by  a  Russian  in  English  endows  it  with 
the  authority  of  an  original,  and  saves  it  from  the 
tedium  and  incorrections  of  a  translation.  The 
authoress  has  lived  long  enough  in  England  to 
know  what  is  both  interesting  and  unintelligible 
to  English  readers,  and  has  lived  long  enough  out 
of  Russia  to  be  able  to  look  at  her  country  and 
countrymen  objectively  and  to  appreciate  fully  the 
value  and  beauty  of  her  own  language ;  at  the  same 


vi  PREFACE 

time  she  is  still  able  to  write  sufficiently  subjec- 
tively to  be  inspiriting,  and  sufficiently  broad- 
mindedly  to  be  convincing.  In  this  way,  with  the 
aid  of  the  numerous  quotations  from  such  authors 
as  Gogol,  Dostoyevski,  and  others  more  modern, 
the  book  will  appeal  to  those  who  are  interested  in 
Kussian  literature  and  psychology,  but  have  no 
time  or  inclination  to  study  the  language ;  written 
in  an  engaging  and  conversational  style,  it  brings 
certain  interesting  and  illuminating  aspects  of  the 
Russian  character  and  language  to  them  in  their 
armchairs,  as  it  were. 

In  the  second  place,  the  book  will  be  directly 
useful  to  the  rapidly  increasing  number  of  people 
in  this  country  who  are  actually  studying  the 
Russian  language.  The  many  aptly  chosen  lin- 
guistic examples  and  their  explanations  and  inter- 
pretations which  illustrate  the  book  go  a  long  way 
towards  providing  a  Russian  syntax  very  attrac- 
tively disguised,  and  will  help  to  impress  certain 
remarkable  characteristics  of  the  Russian  lan- 
guage on  the  minds  of  students  more  effectively 
and  pleasantly  than  the  arid  pages  of  grammars 
and  textbooks  are  wont  to  do. 

Although  differing  somewhat  radically  from  the 
authoress  in  certain  points — amongst  others,  of 
pronunciation  and  the  vexed  problem  of  trans- 
literation (and  therefore  it  may  be  hoped  not  to  be 
suspected  of  collusion) — the  writer  has  no  hesitation 
in  saying  that  for  serious  students  of  the  Russian 
language,  literature,  and  psychology,  the  present 
work,  being,  as  it  is,  a  sort  of  concentrated  essence 
of  Russia,  is  equal  in  value  to  half  a  dozen  of  the 
large  books  on  that  country  which  have  latterly 
been  so  plentifully  showered  upon  us. 

NEVILL  FORBES. 


INTRODUCTION 

DISCUSSING  THE  PROBLEMS  OF  PRONUNCIATION 
AND  TRANSLITERATION 

EDUCATED  English  people  seem  to  be  interested  nowa- 
days in  Russian  literature.  Happily,  there  exist  some 
translations  which  convey  the  general  meaning  of  the 
originals  very  well  indeed — like  those  by  Mrs.  Edward 
Garnett  and  a  few  others.  But  even  they  could  not 
possibly  transfer  the  atmosphere  of  the  Russian  speech, 
its  beautiful  subtlety,  or  its  extreme  analytical  power. 
These  have  no  equivalents  in  modern  English  (nor  in 
other  modern  languages,  but  my  little  study  partly  con- 
cerns the  comparison  between  the  Russian  and  the 
English  speech  only).  Hence  the  gaps  in  the  best  of 
translations;  and  hence  the  appearance  of  these  pages, 
the  aim  of  which  is  to  show  that  those  who  want  to 
understand  the  Russian  national  character  and  to  grasp 
the  beauty  of  Russian  literature,  should  try  and  learn 
the  original  Russian  speech.  Let  not  the  difficulty  of  pro- 
nunciation stop  anyone.  Firstly,  we  are  not  so  particular 
on  a  foreigner's  pronunciation  as  a  Cockney  or  an  English 
labourer  are  on  the  '  exact '  pronunciation  of  English  ! 
I  hope  those  who  have  visited  Russia  have  had  the 
opportunity  to  notice  that  we  are  capable  of  '  catching  a 
word  on  its  flight,'  as  we  say.  Secondly,  it  is  chiefly  not 
the  sounds  themselves,  but  that  logical  flexibility  of  our 

vii 


viii        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

language  which  we  would  love  to  introduce  to  all  the 
world — but  cannot,  for  the  lack  of  a  medium. 

Much  of  the  following  in  the  main  part  of  this  book 
will  startle  a  casual  reader  as  bad  English — but  this  is 
just  the  point:  there  exists  no  good  English  for  many  a 
conception  which  I  want  to  convey  from  the  Russian  ! 
The  only  way  I  can  suggest  is  for  the  reader  to  try  and 
detach  his  mind  from  the  usual  modern  English  and  to  try 
and  penetrate  with  it  into  the  attitude  of  the  Slavonic 
mind.  This  may  be  worth  while  trying  for  those  who 
really  want  to  investigate  this  mental  attitude;  because 
the  mechanism  of  thinking,  the  process  of  thought 
itself,  reflects  of  course  the  nature  of  a  nationality  just 
as  much  as  its  politics  and  customs  do.  And  a  patient 
reader  will,  perhaps,  get  an  additional  glimpse  into  the 
national  Russian  mind  through  seeing  the  possibilities 
which  are  open  to  the  Russian  speech. 

What  is  discussed  in  this  book  beyond  the  preface  is 
not  included  in  Russian  grammar-  and  text-books.  The 
complexity  of  our  syntax  is  naturally  such  a  matter  of 
course  to  us,  that  the  branching  off  of  its  nuances  strikes 
one  only  when  one  is  confronted  with  the  task  of  ex- 
plaining them  to  a  foreigner.  If  it  were  not  for  my 
wonderful  English  friend  to  whom  this  book  is  duly 
and  gratefully  dedicated,  and  who  has  a  regular  'flair' 
for  tracing  the  beauties  of  every  language  and  takes  a 
rare  interest  in  it,  I  should  never  have  been  struck  by 
all  the  subtlety  of  the  Russian  one,  notwithstanding  all 
my  love  for  it.  It  is  only  thanks  to  our  studies  with  him 
and  to  his  knowledge  of  the  philosophy  of  the  old  and 
modern  languages,  that  the  pearls  of  the  Russian  one 
rose  for  me  from  its  sapphire  deep. 

I  hope  that  perhaps  some  of  the  Russian  subconscious 
mind  will  reveal  itself  in  each  of  these  little  pearls  to  the 
eyes  of  my  English  reader  and  will  make  him  see  that 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

learning  our  language  in  the  original  is  worth  the  energy 
it  requires;  especially  for  those  who  are  really  interested 
in  the  Russian  land  itself:  for  I  must  repeat  that  this 
little  work  is  not  a  formidable  theoretical  essay  in  com- 
parative philology,  but  a  sketch  of  the  Russian  national 
psychology  as  reflected  in  the  language. 

But  I  hope  it  will  also  be  helpful  as  a  character-sketch 
of  the  language  itself  to  all  those  who  have  already  begun 
studying  it — and  may  even  arouse  some  interest  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  not  yet  considered  this  some- 
what exciting  occupation. 

Meanwhile,  the  Preface  itself  is  meant  only  for  those 
to  whom  the  idea  of  learning  Russian  is  no  more  strange ; 
and  all  that  follows  in  it  should  not  be  considered  as 
generally  readable  material,  but  only  as  an  offer  of  some 
help  to  the  actual  students. 

The  only  way  for  an  English  person  to  really  grasp  the 
quaint,  characteristic  beauty  of  the  Russian  literature  is 
to  study  the  language  in  the  original.  But  not  through 
grammars  and  text-books  only:  they  suffice  to  frighten 
anyone  away  !  These  booklets  with  the  pronunciation 
authoritatively  fixed  by  their  non-Russian  authors  x  drive 
even  a  Russian  crazy:  what  can,  then,  be  expected  from 
the  unfortunate  English  '  self-scholar '  ! 

There  are  enormous  difficulties  in  conveying  the  exact 
Russian  sounds  by  means  of  the  Western  (Romance) 
characters,  and  I  cannot  help  making  a  big  point  of  it. 
The  nature  of  the  two  alphabets  coming  from  different 
sources 2  is  reflected  respectively  in  the  two  spheres  of 
sound — so  different,  that  the  two  languages  (English 
and  Russian)  cannot  be  said  to  have  a  common  denomina- 
tor. Therefore  the  transliteration  is  rather  like  investi- 

1  Like,  for  instance,  C.  A.  Thimm  and  J.  Marshall's  Russian 
Self-taught. 

2  The   Russian   alphabet    comes   from    the    Greek,   via   Old 
Slavonic. 


x          THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

gating  the  laws  for  prime  numbers,  subject  of  which  is 
full  of  pitfalls  for  the  unwary. 

These  insurpassable  difficulties  account  for  the  fact 
that  there  exist  no  two  persons — one  of  them  Russian  and 
another  English — knowing  the  two  languages  equally  well 
—who  would  entirely  agree  on  the  details  of  trans- 
literating Russian  into  English  (or  the  other  way  round). 
I  think  that  only  practical,  careful  oral  instruction  given 
by  genuine  Russians  can  start  the  English  ear  and  pro- 
nunciation on  the  right  road.  There  are  a  few  excep- 
tions amongst  non-Russian  people,  of  course,  who  can  do 
it  almost  reproachlessly — and  they  should  be  admired  ! 

Meanwhile,  this  little  work  is  not  meant  to  be  anything 
like  a  text-book,  but  one  interesting  for  a  general  reader 
— though  more  or  less  philologically  inclined;  therefore  I 
prefer  not  to  squeeze  our  Russian  words  into  the  exclu- 
sively English  spelling  more  than  it  can  be  helped:  all 
vowels  in  my  Russian  verbal  illustrations  are  represented 
by  the  Italian  vowels,  and  not  by  the  exclusively  English 
ones.  Also,  with  the  consonants,  s  always  sounds  an 
original  ss  (as  in  sun,  but  never  otherwise);  again,  z 
always  sounds  as  in  zeal,  and  never  as  in  azure,  and  is 
never  represented  by  an  s;  the  /  stands  for  the  French 
sound  in  je  (instead  of  replacing  it  by  the  zh)\  and  h 
also  stands  for  its  sound  alone,  instead  of  using  the 
clumsy  and  unfair  kh  /  I  do  so  with  the  instinctive 
Russian  habit  of  putting  one  letter  for  one  sound  (as  we 
always  do  in  our  alphabet)  whenever  possible — instead 
of  increasing  the  genuine  number  of  letters  in  the  Russian 
words.  When  talking  about  the  Russian  language, 
English  people  always  exclaim:  '  Oh,  those  awful  endless 
words  !'  But  the  fact  is  that  they  are  made  longer  in 
appearance  by  applying  the  English  spelling,  which  does 
not  contain  a  sufficient  number  of  single  letters  for 
various  sounds. 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

Ask  some  genuine  Kussian  to  tell  you  slowly  and  dis- 
tinctly the  Russian  words  for:  soap,  dust,  soap-bubble, 
a  far  way,  to  be  in  exile,  height  (the  poetical  form  of  the 
word),  cod-liver  oil,  to  climb,  to  howl,  the  decrease,  a 
white  forehead,  my  dear  (beginning  with  the  letter  M), 
to  wash,  ripple,  dismal  life,  wrath,  etc.1  He  will  find  it 
utterly  impossible  to  write  them  down  for  you  in  English 
letters,  whilst  you  will  find  it  equally  impossible  to  pro- 
nounce these  words  after  him  on  the  spur  of  the  moment 
—unless  Russian  was  the  first  language  you  heard  round 
your  cradle,  or  unless  you  have  spent  many,  many 
years  in  Russia,  or  have  a  philological  genius  innate 
in  you  (which  is  not  often  the  case:  personally,  I 
have  found  only  one  scholar-specialist  of  the  last  de- 
scription in  the  course  of  many  years  of  residence  in 
England). 

The  cause  lies  in  the  close  succession  of  very  hard  con- 
sonants and  very  dark  vowels,  with  consonants  so  soft 
and  vowels  so  light  that  almost  no  Western  ear  or  tongue 
seems  to  be  able  to  master  it  without  energetic  practice. 
Particularly  unconquerable  appears  to  be  the  hard,  in- 
describable vowel  which  is  vainly  represented  in  English 
by  i,  and  y,  and  w,  and  a,  and  what  not  !  It  is  pro- 
nounced approximately  as  i  in  bit,  only  much  deeper  and 
darker.  Next  in  difficulty  come  the  soft  t,  r  and  /,  and 
especially  whole  words  consisting  exclusively  of  soft  con- 
sonants and  light  vowels2:  £'ep'er'=now,  <fe^'=children, 
=  the  green,  r'att  =  ripple,  t'em'en'  =  darkness, 


1  Here  are  these  Russian  words  transliterated  in  the  nearest 

S)ssible  way,  which  is  explained  and  suggested  in  this  Preface: 
ylo,  pyP,  m^l'ny  puz^r',  dal'n'i  put',  byt'  v  ssylke,  vys',  ryb'i  jir, 
lazit',  vyt',  ubyl',  b'ely  lob,  m'ily,  myt',  zyb',  unylaya  jizn',  zlost', 
etc.    For  original  Russian  spelling  see  the  list  of  Russian  words 
at  the  end  of  the  book. 

2  I  am  applying  the  now   adopted  system  of  marking   the 
soft  (palatalized)  Russian  consonants  by  putting  a  small  comma 
at  their  top  corner. 


xii        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

vz)at>=to  take,  ri'ed)el'a=a,  week,  zcTes'=here,  st)ep= 
steppe,  rubdv'—love,  os'=ax,  £'mf&=people52'ecA'=a  leek, 
pr^el>est'=de\ight,  c?'en'^=money,  <f  es'oZ'=ten,  p'er'el'et'et? 
=to  fly  over,  dr'arf — an  untranslatable  definition  for  every- 
thing utterly  valueless  and  wicked  (the  nearest  to  it  in 
English  is  rubbish,  but  it  is  impossible  to  call  an  English 
person  '  rubbish,'  whereas  this  Russian  definition  clearly 
condemns  a  person's  wickedness :  '  He  is  an  awful 
rubbish  !'  is  the  worst  Russian  characteristic  one  can 
think  of — with  the  exception  of  podTetz,  which  stands 
approximately  for  the  English  'cad'). 

To  express  these  sounds  in  English  letters  is  an  almost 
insurpassable  problem  to  us.  That  is  why  so  many 
Russian  names  now  known  in  the  West  of  Europe  are 
spelt  in  different  ways;  we  ourselves  cannot  find  exact 
equivalents  for  our  sounds  even  when  we  are  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  groups  of  Teutonic  and  Romance 
languages,  and  we  are  quite  prepared  to  listen  to  our 
names  and  to  see  all  sorts  of  Russian  words — as  disguised 
by  the  foreign  spelling  and  pronunciation  ! 

And  how  could  this  be  otherwise?  With  nearly  all  the 
Russian  consonants  there  exists  another,  a  soft  (palata- 
lized) way  of  pronouncing  them  as  well,  which  is  com- 
manded by  the  light  vowels  or  by  the  '  soft  sign  '  follow- 
ing them.  It  makes  all  the  difference 'to  the  meaning  of 
certain  words — the  way  their  final  consonants  are  pro- 
nounced, hard  or  soft :  thus,  brat  means  '  brother ' — while 
brat*  means  'to  take';  von/  means  'go  away!' — while 
von1  means  '  stink ' ;  mol  means  '  breakwater  ' — while  moV 
means  '  moth  ' ;  krov  means  '  shelter  ' — while  krov  means 
'  blood  ' ;  pyl  means  '  ardour  ' — while  pyV  means  '  dust,' 
etc.,  etc. 

The  soft  consonants  ef  and  t1  can  be  found  in  Europe 
outside  the  group  of  Slavonic  tongues  only  in  the  Hun- 
garian. The  Spaniards,  Portuguese,  and  Italians  follow 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

us  in  their  soft  I  and  n — but  not  at  the  end  of  the  words, 
which  is  constantly  the  case  in  Russian. 

Our  I,  even  in  its  hard  form,  is  not  the  English  I ;  it  is 
not  the  gentle  English  I,  but  a  richer  sound :  it  is  either  so 
hard  that  a  Westerner  breaks  his  patience  against  it  if  he 
does  not  care  to  practise;  or  it  is  so  elusively  tender,  that 
— at  first  hearing  it — he  finds  himself  completely  baffled. 

There  are  32  pronounceable  letters  x  in  the  modern 
Russian  alphabet,  for  we  not  only  have  more  sounds 
than  the  Westerners  have,  but  we  also  have  a  special 
single  letter  for  each  different  sound,  and  have  there- 
fore no  need  of  the  French,  English,  German,  Hun- 
garian (and  even  Polish)  manner  of  grouping  letters  in 
order  to  define  one  special  sound — like  ch,  sh,  ts,  ou,  ai,  ea, 
eu,  oo,  ee,  kh,  tch,  sch,  cz,  sz,  etc.  That  is  why  our  words 
when  spelt  in  English  look  as  if  they  had  such  a  number 
of  letters  in  them,  simply  because  it  takes  two  or  three 
ordinary  English  letters  to  give  something  approaching 
one  Russian  sound.  In  fact,  the  general  character  of 
the  Russian  spelling  must  be  defined  by  'one  sound = 
one  letter.'2 

On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  Western  sounds  do  not 
exist  in  Russian;  for  that  reason  some  of  us  cannot  pro- 
nounce them,  and  no  one  can  spell  them  correctly  in 
Russian :  the  French  oe,  u,  and  nasal  n,  the  English  th,  u  (as 
in  '  but,'  '  under,'  etc.),  ing  and  wh,  the  swallowed  French 
and  unborn  English  r — as  these  sound  to  us — compared 
to  our  clear  and  clattering  rrrrr,  whether  hard  or  soft! 

1  The  33rd  and  34th  are  only  the  'hard  sign'  and  the  'soft 
sign,'  soundless  in  themselves;  and  another  two  characters  are 
the  obsolete  varieties  of  /  and  i,  which  represent  a  meaningless 
survival  at  the  bottom  of  our  ABC;  they  enter  into  the  spelling 
of  a  few  ecclesiastical  words  only,  and  should  be  neglected  instead 
of  augmenting  the  difficulties  for  an  ordinary  student. 

2  If  anything,  there  are  four  Russian  vowels  and  one  con- 
sonant which  contain  two  sounds  in  one  sign.     This  will   be 
explained  presently. 


xiv       THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Nor  do  we  have  the  Latin  or  Teutonic  medium  I.  Natur- 
ally, therefore,  when  it  comes  to  a  Russian  trying  to  write 
down  in  his  own  language  the  names  of  Underwood,  or 
Thomson,  or  Whithcombe,  their  owners  have  every  right 
to  be  dissatisfied.  In  fact,  only  few  English  words  can  be 
transliterated  into  Russian  without  having  their  genuine 
English  sounds  disguised.  The  difliculty  is  mutual. 

We  have  no  letters  included  in  the  spelling  which  are 
not  to  be  pronounced — like  the  French  endings  for  the 
plural  or  the  aient  in  the  imperfect  tense ;  or  the  English 
e  as  in  the  words  note,  rope,  nose,  etc.  The  only  two 
letters  which  are  not  pronounced  in  Russian  are  not 
meant  to  stand  for  any  sounds  in  themselves,  they  are 
only  the  *  hard  sign '  and  the  '  soft  sign ' — specially  to 
indicate  whether  the  preceding  consonant  is  to  be  pro- 
nounced hard  or  soft.  And  even  then  the  hard  sign  has 
been  found  superfluous,  and  many  children  are  taught 
now-a-days  to  omit  it  at  the  end  of  words  ending  with  a 
hard  consonant.  But  the  soft  sign  remains  indispens- 
able. Its  influence — especially  with  regard  to  the  trans- 
literation problem — is  so  important  that  I  must  dwell  on 
it  with  special  attention : 

1.  The  soft  sign  b  can  be  placed  between  two  con- 
sonants: MajieHbKift  (small)  maVeriki ;  flajibmH  (distant) 
daVni;  or  in  a  number  of  shortened  names:  BacbKa  (Bill), 
IleTbKa  (from:  Peter),  Kojitna  (from:   Nikolay),  etc. 

2.  Or  after  a  consonant  which  is  the  last  letter  in  the 
word:  6ojib  (pain)  boV  ;  ocb  (ax)  os1  ;   Kopb   (measles) 
kor*  ;  KOHb  (steed)  korf  ;  cnaib  (to  sleep)  spat\  etc.    In 
each  of  these  cases — and  their  name  is  legion — the  soft 
sign  renders  the   preceding   consonant  soft  (palatalized), 
which  makes  all  the  difference  to  the  nature  of  its  sound 
and  thus  may  even  alter  the  meaning  of  the  whole  word, 
as  has  been  mentioned  before  (p.  xii).     Yet  this  is  simple 
enough,  and  in  all  such  cases  the  effect  of  the  soft  sign 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

can  be  easily  interpreted  by  the  adoption  of  the  little 
comma  at  the  top  corner  of  the  corresponding  consonant 
of  Latin  origin,  as  it  is  done  throughout  this  book  This 
little  symbol  is  equally  efficient,  and  should  be  always 
applied  for  pointing  out  a  consonant  palatalized  by,  the 
influence  of  the  following  light  vowel:  ne6o  (sky)  n'ebo; 
nijTt>  (to  sing)  p'ef  ;  Tenepb  (now)  t'ep'er  :  JHOJJH  (people) 
Vud'i :  C'fecTb  (to  sit  down)  s'est\  etc. 

Here  I  want  to  point  out  that  the  Russian  vowels  dis- 
tinctly fall  into  two  groups,  each  dark  vowel  having  a 
corresponding  light  one: 


and 


a 
e  or 


El 

H  or  i 


o  |  y  |  being  the  dark  ones; 
being  their  correspond- 


e 


ing  light  ones. 


Well,  everyone  of  the  second  set  affects  the  preceding 
consonant,  rendering  it  soft — and  itself  mostly  turning  into 
its  corresponding  dark  variety.  Thus,  if  you  pronounce  the 
Russian  word  for  '  name  ' — HMH — but  go  on  voicing  its 
last  sound — you  will  find  that  it  is  an  a ;  but  it  has  done 
its  bit,  having  turned  the  hard  M  into  a  soft  one  (while,  if 
you  call  out  in  that  same  way  MEMB,  you  will  notice  that 
the  M  has  remained  hard.  The  same  thing  happens  in 
numberless  cases,  such  as:  O^TBIH,  T^TKecTL,  T/WIO,  3/bJio, 
c/bJTb,  B'fcc'L,  MCJTL,  ejiKa,  nect,  6jiaro#ap70,  c/o^a — etc. 
The  turning  into  the  corresponding  dark  vowel  does  not 
so  frequently  take  place  in  the  case  of  e,  and  never  with 
the  H  or  i.  But  their  effect  on  the  preceding  consonant 
remains  just  the  same,  so  that,  for  instance, -the  letter 

1  Many  Russian  words  contain  this  variety  of  a  light  e. 
There  is  no  difference  whatever  in  the  sound  between  the 
two.  Grammatical  rules  command  the  choice  between  1>  and 
e  in  the  spelling  of  terminations,  but  a  great  number  of  words 
contain  a  -fe  in  their  stem,  and  in  these  cases  can  be  learned 
only  through  practice.  A  witty  remark  runs,  that  ^  exists 
in  order  to  distinguish  educated  people  from  illiterate  ones  ! 


xvi        THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

T  in  TH  (thou),  ty,  sounds  hard,  but  in  THXO  (gently) 
t'iho,  it  is  palatalized  by  the  H  which  is  the  light  sister  of 
the  dark  H.  Or,  the  Ji  in  Jiyna  (moon)  is  still  harder 
and  deeper  than  a  good  Scotch  I,  while  in  JHO^H  (people) 
Pudi,  or  in  JiK)6jiK)  (I  love)  Fu&Tu,  it  sounds,  as  it  were, 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  medium  Romance  I  which  can 
be  taken  as  the  central  one  in  the  little  scale: 

ji  L  Jib 

(Russian)  (Romance)  (Russian). 

Everyone  who  can  master  these  three  shades  of  I, 
voicing  them  on  the  same  continuous  note  and  just  alter- 
ing the  position  of  his  tongue  (from  pressing  its  point  to 
his  teeth  only  to  pressing  the  whole  of  it  close  to  the 
roof  of  his  mouth),  is  sure  to  master  the  Russian 
pronunciation  straight  away !  .  .  . 

Well,  perhaps  another  little  practice  is  equally  efficient 
as  a  test :  namely,  a  parallel  to  the  above  scale : 

BHTB  Bit  EHTL 

(Russian  (English)  (Russian 

for  manners  of  life)  for  beaten) 

Only,  Russian  proceeds  in  this  case  to  a  still  further 
degree  of  softness  and  winds  up  this  scale  by  6umb 

(b'tf). 

The  next  exercise  would  be  to  repeat  the  two  following 
Russian  words  with  the  English  one  between  them  as  a 
stepping-stone : 

JIorL  Lot  Jlert 

(Russian  (English)  (Russian 

for  half-ounce.)  for  flight) 

Really,  you  can  start  quite  bravely,  if  your  ear  and 
tongue  will  master  these  two  hardest  tests  !  Now  we  can 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

proceed  with  the  soft  sign,  and  mention  the  third  way 
in  which  it  can  be  applied. 

3.  When  a  soft  sign  following  a  consonant  is  in  its 
turn  followed  by  a  vowel. 

It  is  only  the  vowels  of  the  light  set  that  can  follow  it 
at  all.  Now,  these  light  vowels,  ivhen  standing  at  the  be- 
ginning of  a  word,  or  when  preceded  by  another  vowel,  by  hard 
sign  or  by  soft  sign,  have  the  sound  of  an  English  y  running 
into  them.  Thus,  in  ejib  (pine  tree),  "the  Russian  e  sounds 
as  in  yes  ;  the  same  in  ?KapKoe  (roast  meat  of  any  kind) 
jarkoye  ;  in  BHHMame  (attention)  vnimaniye  ;  in  oS^eflH- 
Heme  (the  uniting)  obyed'in'eniye  ;  in  Bapente  (jam) 
varenye.  But,  when  preceded  by  a  consonant,  that  same 
letter  e  has  no  y -sound  running  into  it  at  all,  nor  has  the  rfe. 
Thus  RTEJIB  (chalk)  m'el,  or  in  TBJIO  (flesh)  felo,  or  in  TGHJIO 
(warm)  t'epld,  or  in  H'BTL  (no)  n'et — it  palatalizes  the  con- 
sonants M,  T,  and  H  respectively  (itself  turning  into  its 
corresponding  hard- vowel-sound  9),  but  without  getting 
the  y-sound,  with  which  it  does  begin  under  circum- 
stances just  mentioned  above.  Exactly  the  same  rules 
refer  to  the  rest  of  the  light  vowels:  thus,  JOHOCTB  (the 
time  of  youth),  or  MOIO  (mine,  in  fern,  accusat.),  or  nbio 
(I  drink),  sound:  yitnosC,  moyu,  pyu ;  but  TiojibnaHt 
(tulip)  has  none  of  the  ?/-sound  in  it  which  it  has  in 
English — and  the  letter  K)  only  does  its  business  in  ren- 
dering the  T  soft.  So  it  does  in  piOMKa  (wine-glass),  in 
#K)?KHHa  (dozen),  etc. 

Only  the  H,  amongst  the  light  vowels,  makes  a  slight 
exception:  there  are  only  three  words  beginning  with  it 
in  which  it  has  the  ?/-sound  to  start  it  with;  these  are  the 
genitive,  dative,  and  ablative  cases  of  the  Russian  word 
for  <they'  =  OHH:  HXT»  (of  them),  HMT>  (to  them),  and 
HMH  (by  them),  yih,  yim,  yimi.  In  all  the  rest  of  the 
Russian  words  beginning  with  an  H  the  latter  (against 
the  nature  of  other  light  vowels)  has  no  y-part  in  it: 

b 


xviii      THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

iirojiKa  (needle)  igolka  ;  HBa  (willow)  iva  ;  HATH  (to  go) 
idt'i',  etc. 

All  this  only  leads  us  to  my  eventual  aim— namely, 
the  role  of  the  soft  sign  when  standing  between  a  con- 
sonant and  a  soft  vowel:  ceMbfl  (family),  CGMBH  (families), 
cojiOBbii  (nightingales),  ruiaTbe  (dress).  It  is  the  joined 
effect  of  this  little  trio  that  causes  the  last  vowel  to 
assume  its  y-sound  again,  although  there  is  a  consonant 
before  it.  In  other  words,  when  the  soft  sign  stands 
between  a  consonant  and  a  vowel,  the  comma  at  the 
top  corner  of  that  consonant  is  not  sufficient — as  it 
would  not  convey  the  idea  of  the  ?/-sound  running  into 
the  vowel;  and  this  effect,  caused  by  the  presence  of  the 
soft  sign,  should  be  represented  in  transliteration  by  the 
English  y,  distinctly  pronounced  as  a  y  too.  Thus, 
words  like  the  examples  just  given  above  should  be  spelt 
semya,  semyi,  solovyl,  platye,  etc. 

'  This  has  been  always  done  !  ' — I  hear  the  attentive 
scholar  exclaim.  Yes — but  my  point  goes  further. 

This  also  has  been  always  done  where  there  is  no  soft 
sign  after  the  consonant  and  therefore  no  ?/-sound  in  the 
Russian  word  at  all — and  that  is  wherein  the  mistake  lies, 
because  it  makes  all  the  difference  between  genuine 
Russian  pronunciation  and  a  substitute  for  it.  Russian 
words  having  no  b  between  their  consonants  and  light 
vowels  (and  therefore  no  ?/-sound),  like  6aHfl,  SanouiKa, 
HJIM,  Mope,  JHOAH,  TeSi  and  so  forth,  are  always  trans- 
literated as  banya,  batyushka,  ilyi,  morye,  tyebye,  and  so 
forth.  I  can't  help  calling  this  entirely  wrong — whether 
introduced  by  English  or  by  Russian  authors  !  It  either 
indicates  a  lack  of  good  hearing,  or  else,  merely  the 
desire  to  save  trouble.  I  am  too  keen  in  my  desire 
to  help  the  English  students  to  learn  good  Russian, 
and  therefore  must  draw  their  attention  to  this  point, 
which  is  overlooked  in  all  text-books  I  know.  This 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

omission  gives  no  chance  whatever  to  distinguish  the 
two  different  sounds  in  the  Russian  original:  on  the  one 
hand,  the  presence  of  a  y-sound  caused  by  the  presence 
of  a  soft  sign,  and  on  the  other — entire  absence  of  a  y- 
sound  where  there  is  no  soft  sign.  However  difficult  it 
seems  at  first  to  an  English  ear  and  tongue  to  catch  this 
difference,  it  soon  becomes  clear  (from  good  oral  instruc- 
tion) ;  because  the  mere  grouping  of  a  softened  consonant 
with  a  light  vowel  (with  no  soft  sign  in  between)  repre- 
sents an  absolutely  close  succession  of  the  two,  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  as  it  were,  without  any  y-sound  link  between 
them.  Therefore  the  above-quoted  examples  (copied  from 
dictionaries  and  text-books)  ought  not  to  be  spelt  as  they 
are — i.e.,  in  a  wrong  way — but:  ban  a,  bdt'ushka,  ili, 
mdr'e,  V  ud'i,  t'eb'e,  and  so  forth. 

Most  unfortunately,  the  y  has  been  given  the  task  to 
represent  the  darkest  of  all  vowels  H  as  well  as  H — besides 
being  the  only  means  to  interpret  the  effect  of  the  soft 
sign.  But  this  is  not  my  fault,  and  I  cannot  invent  an 
absolutely  new  letter  to  stand  symbolically  for  that 
peculiarly  Slavonic  sound.  For  the  same  reasons  no 
manner  of  transliterating  the  terminations  HH,  He,  HH 
can  be  consistent. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  of  some  use  if  I  give  here  the  Russian 
alphabet  as  it  will  be  transliterated  in  this  book,  and  as 
its  sounds  can  be  possibly  conveyed  to  the  ear  of  my 
reader  in  the  above-explained  ways.  Only,  I  shall  not 
strictly  keep  to  its  original  order.  I  can  see  no  help  in, 
and  no  necessity  for  doing  so  whatsoever;  while  a  certain 
grouping  of  the  characters  may  turn  out  to  be  helpful 
in  memorizing  them. 

But  just  a  few  lines,  first,  about  that  wilful  little  imp 
in  the  Russian  language — the  stress,  the  accentuating  of 
one  certain  syllable  in  every  word.  There  is  no  vestige 
of  a  rule  or  uniformity  about  it !  It  falls,  Qn  anv 


xx         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

part  of  the  word  it  will  choose.  There  are  not  more 
than  a  score  of  words  in  which  the  stress  is  not  strictly 
attached  to  one  certain  syllable — and  even  then  it  is 
mostly  the  difference  between  the  beautiful  pure  speech 
of  the  north  and  centre  of  Russia,  and  its  horribly 
corrupt  variety  of  the  far  south,  round  the  shores  of 
the  Black  Sea.  (I  do  not  mean  the  independent  dialect 
of  Little  Russia,  Ukrayna;  the  latter  is  altogether  as 
different  from  Russian  as  Polish  is.)  The  stress  may 
fall  on  the  stem  of  a  word,  or  on  its  prefix,  or  even  on 
the  termination :  zv uki= sounds;  dfcwH= reflected  sounds ; 
mctto=a,  little;  mcdovdto= rather  too  little!  vodd^  water; 
vddy=wa,tQTs:>  mor'e=sea;  mor'a=seas. 

So  it  flutters  about  in  its  own  obstinate  manner,  like 
a  butterfly — without  leaving  the  foreigner  much  chance 
to  catch  it  on  the  ground  of  any  theories;  what  is  more, 
we  possess  no  nets  to  offer  him  for  the  purpose  ! 

But  once  he  has  got  hold  of  the  stress  in  a  certain  word 
he  must  hold  it  fast;  because  you  may  slide  over  any 
syllables  in  speaking  Russian — except  those  with  the 
stress  falling  on  them:  they  stand  out  high  above  the 
rest,  and  our  national  dislike  for  monotony  is  distinctly 
reflected  in  this  characteristic  feature  of  our  speech. 

One  of  the  worst  defects  in  the  Russian  as  spoken  by 
the  foreigners  is,  that  they  don't  put  weight  enough  on  the 
accentuated  syllables ;  whilst  it  is  so  natural  and  so  essen- 
tial for  us  to  do  so,  that  I  know  cases  when  babies,  in 
beginning  to  speak,  started  a  somewhat  extraordinary 
language  of  their  own:  they  picked  out  just  those  syllables 
from  the  grown-up  people's  speech,  which  had  the  accent 
on  them  !  Now,  the  Russian  language  has  not  as  many 
one-syllable  words  in  it  as  the  English — by  far  less;  so  it 
was  for  several  months  that  these  babies'  monologues 
could  not  be  understood  by  anyone  except  their  mothers. 
Nevertheless,  all  these  difficulties  can  be  conquered  by 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

English  people — who  have  a  will  to  learn,  a  little 
capacity,  and  some  genuine  Russian  person  to  guide 
them.  But  a  really  well-speaking  Englishman  who  has 
lived  in  the  centre  or  north  of  Russia  is  a  better  teacher 
than  a  Russian  from  the  far  south — and,  especially, 
better  than  a  Russian  Jew.  I  must  be  fair  to  my  sub- 
ject and  say  that  even  amongst  the  well-educated,  in- 
tellectual Jews  in  Russia  there  are  very  few  who  speak 
without  a  specific  accent  of  their  own  —  guttural  and 
nasal — which  is  decidedly  absent  from  the  clear,  open 
Russian  speech.  They  speak  Russian  much  worse  than 
they  speak  English. 

The  Armenians,  too,  can  be  detected  by  their  first 
phrase  spoken  in  Russian:  their  manner  is  to  put  broad, 
heavy  stresses  on  each  syllable,  unheedful  of  any  soft  and 
light  sounds,  and  turning  them  all  into  a  kind  of  good- 
natured,  deep  barking  ! 

The  Finns  produce  a  chain  of  short,  dry,  colourless 
syllables,  as  if  chopping  meat — and  giving,  somehow ,  the 
impression  as  if  the  Russian  were  littered  with  millions  of 
tt-a  and  pp-s ! 

As  it  can  be  seen,  all  these  accents  rob  the  genuine 
Russian  speech  of  one  of  its  characteristic  ingredients: 
the  extreme  delicacy  of  sound ;  the  melting  softness. 

The  Poles  have  an  accent  of  their  own,  of  course.  The 
softness  and  delicacy  do  not  baffle  them  (except,  some- 
times, with  the  palatalized  r).  But  they  take  our  hard  I 
and  turn  it  into  the  sound  of  a  w  (as  it  sounds  with  their 
language). 

By  the  way,  I  know  a  Polish  girl  in  England  who  has 
no  accent  whatever  (although  she  speaks  with  half-closed 
lips,  unlike  the  Russians)  and  who  gives  excellent  in- 
structions in  Russian;  well,  she  tells  me  that  she  almost 
begins  her  teaching  each  time  by  insisting  that  her  pupil 
should  grasp  the  difference  (discussed  above)  between  the 


xxii      THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

sound  of  the  soft  consonants  simply  followed  by  light 
vowels,  and  the  cases  when  there  is  a  soft  sign  between 
the  two. 

Keeping  all  this  in  mind,  an  English  student  will  soon 
find  out  that  the  '  barbaric  brute  of  a  language '  is  not 
unsurmountable  after  all !  And  I  am  glad  to  repeat  that 
English,  or  rather  British,  people  take  the  lead  amongst 
all  Europeans  in  the  capacity  of  learning  it. 

A  few  introductory  lines  to  our  o,  because  this  is  the 
letter  that  gets  affected  by  the  stress  falling  on  it. 

When  there  is  no  stress  on  it,  the  o  is  mostly  pronounced 
as  an  a:  Xopoino  (all  right,  very  well)  sounds  harasho; 
B0#a  (water) — vada;  or6m>  (fire) — agon\  etc.  But  we  think 
of  it  as  an  o  all  the  same,  which  corresponds  in  English 
to  the  thinking  of  the  presence  of  a  g  at  the  end  of  present 
participles:  without  the  speaker's  thinking  about  the  g 
being  there,  the  '  coming '  would  turn  into  '  comin',' 
'  writing  '  into  '  writin','  etc.  Therefore,  in  transliterat- 
ing Russian  words,  I  prefer  to  keep  the  o  wherever  it 
is  spelt  in  Russian. 

When  the  stress  does  fall  on  it,  the  o  sounds  particu- 
larly distinct  and  pointed  (there  is  never  any  admixture  of 
the  sounds  h  or  w  to  a  Russian  o);  when  the  stress  falls 
elsewhere  (maybe  on  another  o  in  the  same  word),  then 
the  unaccentuated  o  is  pronounced  quickly  and  lightly, 
leaving  the  whole  weight  of  the  word,  as  usual,  with  the 
accentuated  syllable.  Thus,  the  above-mentioned  xo- 
pomo  carries  the  whole  weight  with  the  last  o:  the  first 
two  o's  can  be  run  over  entirely,  if  you  are  talking  quickly  ! 
whilst  in  words  like  onacno  (dangerously)  or  yjKacno 
(dreadfully),  the  last  o  is  chequed  at  its  very  start.  This 
rule  is  quite  easy  to  follow. 

Now  for  the  alphabet: 


INTRODUCTION 


XXlll 


Dark  vowels  :  a,  3,  LI,  o,  y. 


Russian 
Characters. 

Repre- 
sented by— 

Sounding— 

A     a 

3      a 

a 
e 

As  in  Italian.     Cami  (sledges)  sani. 
As  in  Italian  ;  or  as  in  English  in  end. 
BTO     (this)    eto;    noaMa     (poem) 

LI 

y 

poema. 
As  i  in  bit,  but  much  deeper  and 
darker.     There  are  no  words  be- 

0       0 

0 

ginning  with   it.      Mbi   (we)   my; 
Bbi  (you)  vy;  CbiHt  (son)  syn. 
As  in  Italian  or  as  in  English  in  on. 

y  y 

u 

OCH  (wasps),  osy;  66a  (both),  oba. 
As    in   Italian.      Yum    (ears)   ushi; 
nyrb  (way)  put\ 

Corresponding  light  vowels : 
H,  e  or  "B,  H  or  i,  e  or  e,  10. 


ft    fl 


E      e 
or 


ya 


Or  a 


Or  ie 


As  in  English  in  yard,  when  the  y- 
sound  is  present  in  the  Russian 
word,  fl  (I)  ya;  flflpo  (shell) 
yadro;  MOH  (mine,  femin.),  moya; 
ceMBH  (family)  semya. 

When  the  ?/-sound  is  absent. 

(seed)  sent* a;  BpeMfl  (time)  vr'ertfa; 
BOJIH  (will)  vol'a. 

As  in  English  in  yes,  when  the  y- 
sound  is  present.  EJIB  (pine  tree) 
yeT ;  GCTB  (is)  yesf ;  'fecTb  (to  eat) 
yes? ;  HTO  Tanoe?  (what?)  chto 
takoyel  oSteAHHeme  (the  uniting) 
obyedin'eniye;  Bapenbe  (jam)  var'e- 
nye;  Cffejit  (ate  it  up)  syel; 
xoponiee  (nice — sing,  neut.)  horo- 
sheye. 

When  the  English  y  has  already  just 
been  used  to  represent  the  preced- 
ing bi.  XpaSpbie  (brave — in  plur.) 
hrabryie;  MMJIBIG  (dear — in  plur.) 
milyie. 


xxiv      THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


Russian 
Characters. 

Repre- 
sented by— 

Sounding— 

Or  e 

As  in  Italian,  when  the  ?/-sound  is 

absent.     Tenjio  (it  is  warm)  t'eplo; 

Tenepb  (now)  tfep'er';  TBJIO  (body, 

flesh)  t  do  ;  fl-fijio  (business,  deed) 

d'elo;  irEMeirt  (a  German)  n'em'etz; 

eecejio  (gaily)  v'es'elo. 

M        H 

i 

As    in    Italian.      Hs6a    (hut)    izba. 

and 

The  i  stands  in  Russian  only  be- 

I      i 

fore  the  vowels,  but  sounds  exactly 

like  H.     Mojinifl  (lightning)  mol- 

niya',   AHFJIIH  (England)  Angliya. 

E     e 

yo 

As  in  English  in  yoke,  when  the  y- 

and 

sound  is  present.     EjiKa  (Christ- 

e 

mas    tree)   yolka\   Moe    (mine  —  in 

sing,  neut.),  moyo. 

Or  o 

When  the  ?/-sound  is  absent.      Be- 

cejiLiH      (gay  —  in     sing,     masc.), 

ves'oly  ;  A  Jienia  (shortened  :  Alexey) 

AVosJia.    This  sound  has  the  stress 

falling  on  it  always  ;  therefore  the 

0  in  it  sounds  clear  and  brisk. 

K)      K) 

yu 

As  the  English  word  you,  when  the  y- 

sound  is  present.     K)jia  (spin-top) 

yula;  lOjiin  (Julia)  Yuliya-,  noio  (I 

sing)   poyu\   MOK)  (mine  —  in  fern. 

accus.)  moyu;  MOIO  (I  wash)  moyu. 

OTU 

When  the  ?/-sound  is  absent.     JIio^n 

(people)     Vudi  ;     JiK)6oBb     (love) 
Vubov  ;  JJJOEJIK)  (I  love)  VuWu. 

—    & 

y 

As  in  English  in  boy,  represents  an 

independent  vowel.     There  are  no 

words    beginning    with    it.      Eon 

(battle)    boy  ;     JOMOH  !    (home!) 

domoy  !    Diphthongs    iii    and    Liii 

are  usual   terminations  with  the 

adjectives  (in  masc.  sing,  nomin.). 

Being   too   complex   for   detailed 

transliteration     they    should     be 

represented    by  i   and   y   respec- 

tively.    HaHKOBCKift,  Chaykovski  ; 

TajiaHTJiHBHii  (talented)  talantlivy; 

jnoSuMLiH  (beloved)  Vubimy. 

INTRODUCTION 


XXV 


Consonants — hard  and  soft  (palatalized)  : 

6,  B,  T,  A,  JK,  3,  K,  JI,  M,  H,  H,  p,  C,  T,  <j),  X,  T(,  H,  III, 


Russian 
Characters. 

Repre- 
sented by— 

Sounding  — 

B      6 

b 

As    in    English.      JIo6i,    (forehead) 

lob',  pa6i>  (serf)  rob-,  SLTTL  (man- 

ner of  life)  byt. 

V 

Soft:    Pa6b    (ripple)    r'afc';    6-EJiuii 

(white)  Vdy\  6bio  (I  am  beating) 

byu. 

B        B 

V 

As  in  English.     3oBt  (call)  zov. 

»' 

Soft:  EpOBb  (eyebrow)  brov'  ;  B-tTKa 

(branch)  v'etka  ;   COJIOBLH  (night- 

ingales) solovy'i. 

T      r 

9l 

As  in  English  in  good.     Fofl-B  (year) 

god. 

A      A 

d 

As   in   English.     ^OIVTB   (the   home, 

house)  dom;  pa^i,  (glad  —  in  masc.) 

rad. 

d> 

Soft:      Jloinajjb      (horse)      loshad"  ; 

flO?Kflb    (rain)    cZo^';   a^Jio  (busi- 

ness, deed)  d*elo. 

>K      7K 

As  in  French  (the  Russian  ear  di- 

vides the  English  j  into  d  and  ;'). 

/Kena    (wife)    jena  ;     POH^BCTBO 

(Christmas)  Rojdestvo. 

3         3                Z 

As  in  English  in  zeo/.     Bos-b  (cart) 

voz  ;  s^pacTByfiTe  !  (a  greeting  at 

any  time  of  day  or  night)  zdrast- 

vuyfe  ! 

z' 

Soft:   Bposb    (apart)  vroz9;    se-irenb 

(the  green)  z'eVeri;   3HTb  (son-in- 

law)  z'aC;  siflTb  (to  gape)  ziyaf  \ 

s'eMJifl  (land,  earth)  z'emVa? 

1  I  am  not  dealing  with  the  variety  of  this  sound,  because 
it  is  simply  a  bad  southern  pronunciation.     The  only  word  in 
which  a  kind  of  a  soft  r  is  universally  adopted  is  FocnoflH  (O 
Lord  !),  and  then  it  sounds   between  a    g  and  an  h — voiced — 
as  it  does  in  a  few  adjectives  when  followed  by  K;  therefore  the 
usual  way  of  transliterating  it  by  a  kh  is  quite  wrong,  coarse, 
and  ugly. 

2  Unrecognizable  in  the  *  Nova  Zembla.' 


xxvi     THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


Russian  Repre- 

Characters.    j  sented  by — 


Sounding — 


K     K  k  As  in  English.     RjnoHt  (key)  kVuch. 

JI     ji  I         \  Much  deeper  than    the  Western  I. 

JIoJKKa  (spoon)  loj ka ;  aajTL  (gave — 
in  masc.)  dot  ;  30Jn>  (angry)  zol; 
coJiHbniiKO  (the  dear  sun)  solnyshko. 
Soft,  like  in  elusive,  but  still  more 
melted:  ^ajib  (a  far  distance) 
daT;  cojib  (salt)  sol';  Jiefli,  (ice) 
I'od;  JIIOAHLIH  (alive — through  the 
presence  of  many  people)  I'udny; 
najibio  (I  shall  pour  out)  nalyu. 

M     M     |      m          As  in  English.     MHJIO  (soap)  mylo. 
Soft:  MHJIHM  (dear)w'%;  CM^Tb  (to 
dare)  sm'et' ;  epeMH  (time)  vr'em'a; 
ceMbfl  (family)  s'emya. 

H     H     '      n  As  in  English.     Om>  (he)  on. 

n  Like  the  Italian  gn,   but  sounding 

quite  short  at  the  end  of  the 
words.  Soft:  Konb  (steed)  kon'; 
ITEMOH  (dumbjn'ewoi/;  COHH (short- 
ened name  for  Sofya),  Son  a;  RO 
CBHftaHbfl  (au  revoir)  do  svidanya. 

11      n     !      p  As    in    English.      OKOITL     (trench) 

okop;  nyxi>  (down)  puh. 
p  Soft:    Tonb    (swamp)   top9  ;   Tenepb 

(now)  t'ep'er';  xpana  (in  snoring), 
hrap'a;  xjionbH  (fluffs),  hlopya. 

P      p  r  As  in  Scotch,  rolling  it;  short.    Cbip-b 

(cheese)  syr;  pa66Ta  (work)  rabota. 
r  Soft:  also  with  a  momentary  rolling. 

Kopb  (measles)  kor';  Mope  (sea) 
mor'e;  B3M6pbe  (strand)  vzmorye. 

G      c  s  As  in  JEnglish  in  sun.     Cbim>  (son) 

syn;  cnacnSo  (thank  you)  spasibo. 
Soft :  GiiJia  (strength)  sila ;  cijnb  (he sat 
down)  s'el;  c-L-BJit  (he  ate  up)  syel.1 

1  Just  in  a  few  cases  the  hard  sign  t  is  inserted  in  the 
middle  of  the  word;  then  it  acts  on  the  following  vowel  as 
the  soft  sign  does,  i.e.,  adding  to  it  the  ?/-sound  (without 
palatalizing  the  preceding  consonant — but  this  is  too  subtle  a 
difference  for  a  non-Russian  ear!)."" 


INTRODUCTION 


XXVI I 


Russian 
Characters. 


Repre- 
sented by — 


fSounding — 


T        T 


(D     $ 
X    x 


^  ^ 


ts  or 

tz 


ch 


in  in 


m 


slich 


.D 


Oiy 


As  the  English  double  tt.  TOTL  (that 
one)  tot;  noTomb  (deluge)  potop. 

Soft:  XoTb  (although)  ho? ;  THXO 
(gently)  t'iho;  naTe  !  (take  this  !) 
naCe  !  njiaTbe  (dress)  platye. 

As  in  English.    Oynrb  (pound)  funt. 

As  in  English  in  home.  Chehov 
(name  of  the  author);  xaTa  (hut) 
Jiata. 

As  in  English.     L(apb  (Tsar)  Tsar  ; 
LJapCTBO     (Tsardom)       Tsarstvo; 
(the    Germans)   N'emtzy; 
(aim)  tzeT;  npnujiji'L  (range, 
in  shooting)  pritzel. 

As  in  English  in  church. 

(man,  human  being)  chelov'ek. 

As  in  English  in  shock.  HlanKa 
(hat,  cap)  shapka;  niJinna  (lady's 
hat)  shl'dpa;  Kama  (all  sorts  of 
porridge)  kasha. 

As  in  English  in  Ashchurch.  HjH 
(name  of  a  national  soup)  shchi; 
poma  (a  small  wood)  roshcha; 
6opm'L  (a  name  of  another  national 
soup)  borshch. 

Soft  sign:  its  influence  being  repre- 
sented by  a  comma  at  the  top 
corner  of  the  palatalized  con- 
sonant. Mbicjib  (thought)  mysF. 

When  it  stands  between  a  consonant 
and  a  vowel,  thus  producing  the 
effect  of  a  ?/-sound  between  them. 
KptiJibH  (wings)  krijlya. 

Hard  sign,  omitted  in  transliterating, 
except  where  it  stands  in  the 
middle  of  a  word,  inserting  a 
?/-sound;  CMHCJTL  (sense)  smysl\ 
nojrb'fes^'B  (front  porch)  podyezd; 
Bi/kxaTb  (to  drive  into)  vyehat\ 


xxviii     THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Amongst  the  Russian  words  chosen  here  as  examples, 
there  are  some  of  the  most  difficult  ones  with  regard  to 
pronunciation;  keeping  other  considerations  as  main 
reasons  in  selecting  the  examples,  I  nevertheless  included 
some  difficult  words  quite  consciously.  Firstly,  in  order 
that  my  reader  couldn't  suspect  me  in  veiling  over  still 
harder  obstacles  from  his  view — with  the  purpose  of  luring 
him  on  to  a  treacherous  road  !  And  secondly,  because 
the  whole  of  this  Preface  is  intended  only  for  those  who 
have  already  started  learning  Russian:  to  them  it  may, 
perhaps,  serve  as  a  little  compass.  I  must  add,  though, 
that  /  don't  for  a  moment  consider  this  particular  scheme 
of  transliteration  as  finally  solving  the  problem.  I  shall 
always  consider  it  insolvable,  because  oral  instruction  is 
the  only  means  which  can  give  an  idea  of  the  difference 
between  the  two  spheres  of  sounds,  English  and  Russian. 
In  the  case  of  those  foreigners  whose  Russian  is  '  self- 
taught  ' — it  is  almost  unrecognizable  !  Common  de- 
nominators are  too  scanty  !  Instead  of  wondering  at 
the  Russian  words  in  their  Romance  disguise — much 
better  come  and  investigate  them  in  their  genuine  aspect 
and  meaning. 

But  the  reader  who  is  interested  exclusively  in  the 
Russians  themselves,  as  reflected  in  the  spirit  of  their 
language,  should  begin  with  the  book  itself — leaving  the 
'  terrible  stuff '  of  my  Preface  alone  !  Because,  above  all, 
it  is  not  the  Russian  sounds  themselves  that  I  would 
mainly  like  to  convey  to  the  English  public  through  this 
little  work,  but  the  channels  along  which  the  Russian  mind 
works — whether  I  am  talking  about  the  subconsciously 
created  single  words,  or  about  whole  works  by  Russian 
authors. 

I  am  glad  to  avail  myself  of  the  opportunity  and  to 
welcome  the  two  books  by  Mr.  Nevill  Forbes:  Russian 
Grammar  and  First  Russian  Book.  They  show  a  wonderful 


INTRODUCTION  xxix 

command  of  our  language  !  Obviously,  the  author  feels 
perfectly  at  home  in  the  midst  of  its  subtlety  and  com- 
plexity; this  is  a  delight  to  a  Russian  reader  who  is  bored 
and  tormented  by  all  the  other  textbooks  written  in 
English  about  our  Mother-tongue. 

And  just  because  I  do  think  of  Mr.  Forbes's  works  so 
highly  (especially  of  the  First  Russian  Book),  I  cannot 
omit  one  point  about  them  which  does  not  satisfy  a 
Russian.  It  is  this  point  that  really  has  made  me  write 
all  the  preceding  pages  about  our  sounds  as  these  are 
created  and  pronounced  by  Russian  people  who  cherish 
their  national  treasure;  because  it  surprises  me  that 
Mr.  Nevill  Forbes,  knowing  the  structure  and  spirit  of 
our  language  so  brilliantly,  should  still  repeat  some  items 
invented  by  foreigners  —  items  which  really  hurt  a 
Russian  eye  and  ear.  His  main  mistake  is  that  absence 
of  difference  in  the  transliteration  of  those  Russian  vowels 
that  have  the  y -sound  running  into  them,  and  those  that 
have  not  got  it.  I  shall  not  repeat  the  whole  business 
over  again.  Those  who  care,  can  look  it  up  above 
(pp.  18,  19).  The  second  mistake  consists  in  the  advice 
to  use  the  English  sound  w  in  order  to  pronounce  our  hard 
Ji.  I  also  mentioned  this  before:  there  is  no  w-sound  in 
the  genuine  Russian  language;  it  happens  only  as  a 
Polonism.  And  the  third  mistake  is — using  the  English 
letters  /,  t,  a,  /c,  s,  p  and  *  for  transliterating  the  Russian 
B,  fl,  o,  r,  3,  6  and  i  (=v,  d,  o,  g,  z,  b  and  e).  In  doing  so, 
Mr.  Forbes  allows  no  difference  between  the  sounds  of 
these  different  letters  in  npafft  and  (Jjapjia^,  roch>  and 
KOWL,  Jiecfa>  and  nojiewb,  Majia  and  Majio,  Jiyzi,  and  Jiy/n>, 
60  at  and  6o*n>,  pa3i>  and  pact,  Jiofrt  and  KJICWB,  B/bdb 
and  eumb,  etc. 

I  can  but  repeat  that  it  is  all  right  for  a  Russian  to 
put  a  shade  of  <j),  T,  a,  K,  c,  u  and  e  into  his  B,  #,  o,  r,  3, 
6  and  n,  because  we  instinctively  keep  in  our  mental 


xxx      THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

vision  the  correct  spelling  and  the  genuine  sound  of  the 
words  containing  the  characters  of  the  last  row;  but  for 
a  foreigner  who  has  not  got  this  original  sight  and  sound 
in  his  brain  since  early  childhood,  for  him  it  is  more  than 
dangerous  to  learn  those  words  as  if  they  really  had  the 
characters  of  the  first  row  in  them  ! 

I  think  I  can  make  this  quite  clear  if  I  say  that  it 
would  be  exactly  the  same  thing  if  we  were  taught  to 
pronounce  in  English:  pensi/  and  offensi/,  instead  of 
pensive  and  offensive;  or  abstract  instead  of  abstract;  or 
tolt  instead  of  told.  One  can  find  a  shade  of  /,  p,  and  t  in 
these  examples  as  much  as  in  the  above-given  Russian 
ones,  but — thinking  of  them  in  the  right  way  makes  all 
the  difference  to  the  sound.  And  I  really  cannot  help 
insisting  that  it  would  be  better  for  the  English  students 
of  our  language  if  they  were  taught  to  think  of  all  the 
sounds  in  the  right  way.  Again  it  comes  to  the  same: 
in  teaching  in  an  oral  way  it  is  quite  right  and  even 
excellent  to  point  out  the  subtle  shades  of  pronunciation 
in  certain  cases;  but  to  fix  those  cases  as  general  rules 
in  print  is  quite  different,  I  think. 

Otherwise,  the  works  by  Mr.  Nevill  Forbes  are  not  only 
formidable,  excellent — and  the  only  works  written  in 
English  that  are  bound  to  help  the  students  of  our  language 
to  a  very  great  extent — but  they  also  are  works  in  which 
the  author's  pleasure  in  dealing  with  his  subject  is  obvious ; 
and  this  is  dear  to  a  Russian  reader,  because  one  can't 
enjoy  writing  a  philological  textbook  unless  one  is  carried 
away  by  the  inner  spirit  of  the  language  !  Only  then  the 
complexity  of  a  foreign  grammar  can  be  explained  with 
such  care  as  Mr.  Forbes  explains  it. 

All  that  complexity  —seeming  as  well  as  real — is  worth 
an  effort;  this  is  the  opinion  of  all  those  English  people 
who  have  made  it.  Because  the  structure  of  the  Russian 
language  is  still  more  interesting  and  beautiful  than  it  is 


INTRODUCTION  xxxi 

difficult.  The  difficulties  I  do  not  deny.  But  I  can 
honestly  say  that,  of  all  foreigners,  British  people  alone 
are  capable  of  overcoming  them.  Of  this  I  have  had 
ample  experience  in  Russia,  and  I  am  glad  to  put  it  on 
record  for  the  encouragement  of  my  friends  in  this 
country. 

N.  JARINTZOV. 


THE 

KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

AT  the  beginning  of  the  War  I  came  across  the  fol- 
lowing expression  somewhere  in  the  English  Press : 
'  However  much  has  been  recently  written  about 
the  Russians,  they  will  remain  to  us  "  Russians  " 
just  "  Russians,"  that  is  all.'     I  find  this  rather 
nice.     Much  better  to   be   acknowledged   as  un- 
known strangers  than  to  be  misunderstood.     The 
Russians  have  never  taken  the  trouble  to  advertise 
themselves  when  they  might  command  deserved 
respect.    For  the   last   two   centuries   they   have 
always  expected  the  light  to  come  to  them  from 
the  West,  and  in  the  meanwhile  have  developed  in 
their  own  way,  with  unexpected  strides  and  in  un- 
expected directions — wherever  there  was  room  to  go 
ahead. 

It  needs  absence  from  Russia  for  several  years 
in  order  to  summon  up  sufficient  courage  to  blow 
her  trumpets  for  her  a  little  !  (The  Russians  are 
always  dissatisfied  with  themselves.)  But  she 
really  deserves  it  on  some  points,  and  just  now, 

I 


2          TEE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

when  one  constantly  hears  that  '  Kussia  is  in  the 
mind  of  all  Europe,'  I  would  like  to  share  with 
those  who  care  for  it  some  thoughts  derived 
from  interesting  studies  and  observations.  These 
thoughts  concern  the  spirit  of  our  land,  which 
is  interwoven  with  its  language  to  the  highest 
imaginable  extent. 

As  long  as  national  individuality  remains  an 
unconquerable  feature  (however  much  modified  by 
the  wisest  cosmopolitanism),  we  Russians  cannot 
help  loving  our  language  passionately.     Russia  re- 
presents a  complicated  interlacement  of  contrasts. 
We  feel  in  it  like  fish  in  water.     But  the  mere  re- 
flection of  that  scale  of  contrasts  in  the  very  sounds 
of  our  language  puzzles  every  non-Slavonic  student; 
and  I  have  tried,  in  my  preface,  to  be  of  some  help 
by  throwing  light  on  the  Russian  pronunciation  and 
its  transliteration — as  it  appears  from  a  Russian's 
point  of  view.     I  must  repeat  that  there  are  no  two 
persons  who  would  entirely  agree  on  these  points  if 
one  of  them  is  English  and  the  other   Russian. 
Therefore,  I  am  brightly  expecting  any  attack  on 
the  part   of   English  philologists !      My  personal 
conscientious  effort  was  only  intended  to  show  that 
the  original  Russian  spelling  contains  no  mystery; 
on  the  contrary,  it  reflects  the  chief  feature  of  the 
Slavonic  nationalities :  a  close  combination  of  ex- 
treme contrasts  retaining  most  clearly  the  indivi- 
duality of  each  item.     Not  a  softly  flowing  matter 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE          3 

of  amalgamated  ingredients,  but  a  sparkling,  viva- 
cious current  of  most  contrasting  substances.  Not 
a  chemical  compound,  but  a  kaleidoscopic  crystal- 
lization. 

I  have  left  all  the  technical  discussions  on  the 
Russian  sounds  and  on  the  problem  of  their  trans- 
literation to  the  preface,  where  they  can  be  looked 
up  by  the  present,  or  intending,  students  of  the 
Russian  language.  The  book  itself  is  meant  for  a 
broader  purpose — namely,  to  show  the  national 
character  of  the  Russians  as  reflected  in  their  language. 
This  is  my  main  ambition  !  The  secondary  one  is 
to  show  the  wealth,  the  sparkling  colouring,  the 
warmth,  and  the  flexibility  of  our  Russian  speech, 
which  are  due  chiefly  to  three  factors:  (1)  The 
youthful  vigour  caused  by  the  ever-present  ingress 
of  the  child-young  Old  Slavonic  and  Old  Russian 
elements;  (2)  the  all-powerful  influence  of  the 
'  syllables  of  nuances  '  and  terminations,  the  scales 
of  which  allow  boundless  subtlety  in  the  rendering 
of  various  shades  and  half -shades  of  thought; 
(3)  the  freedom  of  arranging  the  relative  order  of 
words  in  every  phrase. 

In  adding  these  few  paragraphs  after  the  book 
itself  has  been  finished,  I  also  ought  to  say  that  I 
wrote  it  '  just  as  it  came  ' — without  keeping  to 
any  theory  or  system — myself  frequently  enjoying 
the  unexpected  revelations,  as  the  details  and 
varieties  of  examples  came  swarming  to  my  mind. 


4          THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Therefore,  kind  reader,  don't  be  surprised  at  the 
following  pages.  You  know  the  case  when  you  con- 
template a  journey  and  find  that  you  have  to  pack 
so  many  things,  that  you  think  George,  one  of  Mr. 
Jerome's  Three  Men  in  a  Boat,  was  right  when 
he  suggested  making  out  a  list  of  articles  they 
would  not  want  on  the  river — as  being  the  shortest. 
Well,  mine  is  just  the^case.  The  luxuries  of  speech 
which  we  do  possess  and  you  don't  are  so  numerous 
that  they  overwhelmed  me  for  a  moment  when  I 
was  starting  on  my  interesting  task ;  and  the  alter- 
native I  involuntarily  grasped  at,  to  begin  with, 
presented  itself  in  those  few  points  where  the 
English  language  seems  to  beat  ours. 

***** 
English         There  are  some  English  definitions  which  we 

concep-  -  --«  i 

tions  not  either  do  not  possess  at  all,  or  apply  in  somewhat 
Russian,  different  circumstances.  Such  is,  for  instance, 
1  kick.'  Our  equivalent  for  it  (brykdtsa)  is  applied 
exclusively  to  the  manners  of  cattle  !  Football 
was  not  known  in  Russia  till  the  end  of  last 
century ;  and  since  they  have  adopted  it  over  there, 
they  also  had  to  adopt  the  word  '  kick  '  with  it— 
because  no  one  would  think  of  applying  the  Russian 
definition  for  cattle's  kicking  to  human  beings. 
But  when  we  adopt  a  foreign  word  we  treat  it  as 
our  own — i.e.,  like  a  piece  of  wax;  therefore,  the 
sound  '  kick  '  is  treated  with  us  as  the  football 
itself  is  --and  as  all  foreign  words  are.  No  English 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE          5 

man  would  recognize  either  his  '  safe  '  in  the  bank, 
nor  his  '  flirt ' — in  their  numerous  Kussian  aspects 
commanded  by  the  winding  paths  of  the  grammar. 
The  same  is  the  doom  of  the  English  word 
'  shock.'  But  here  I  must  add  that  the  idea  of 
calling  things  '  shocking  '  is  so  far  from  the  Russian 
mind  that  there  exists  no  original  equivalent  to  it 
at  all;  and  when  we  use  the  English  expression, 
'  shocking  !  '  we  dt)  so  exclusively  in  a  humorous 
tone,  and  thus  apply  it — very  emphatically  indeed 
—in  its  original  form.  But  using  it  as  a  verb 
(although  also  for  fun  only),  we  treat  it  as  we  do 
our  own  verbs.  I  feel  tempted  to  give  in  a  foot- 
note a  sample  scale  of  the  terminations — which  are 
similar  with  hundreds  of  genuine  Russian  verbs  of 
a  certain  group.1  No  school  child  or  peasant 
thinks  them  to  be  anything  special,  or,  in  fact, 
thinks  of  their  being  there  at  all;  it  is  only  the 
gerund  which  the  working  classes  are  apt  to  twist 

1  INFINITIVE  :  Shokirovat.'     (We  need  no  c  before  the  k.) 

IMPERATIVE  :  Shokiruy  (s.)  shokiruyte  (pi). 

PRESENT  TENSE  :  Shokiruyu,  shokiruyesh,  shokiruyet,  shok- 
iruyem,  shokiruyete,  shokiruyut. 

PAST  TENSE  :  Shokiroval  (w.),  shokirovala  (fern.),  shokirovalo 
(neut.},  shokirovali  (pi.}. 

FUTURE  :  The  complex  future  tense,  as  with  the  infinitive. 
The  simple  future,  which  consists  of  one  word  only,  does 
not  exist  with  this  verb,  because  it  has  not  the  perfective 
aspect  granted  to  it.  If  it  had,  the  following  variety  of 
terminations  might  have  been  greater. 

GERUND  PRESENT  :  shokiruya.     GERUND  PAST  :  shokirovav. 


6          THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

a  little  bit  in  their  own  way — but  without  being  in 
the  least  puzzled  over  it.  ...  '  He  is  vyshodsy  ' 
is  likely  to  be  the  answer  of  the  general  servant  of 
your  friend's  when  you  fail  to  find  him  in;  it  stands 
for:  '  He  is  vi/shedshi  ' — '  He  is  being  out.'  But  if 
you  pensively  remark:  '  You  must  not  say  "  vy- 
shodsy," Akulina,  but  vi/shedshi^  she  will  answer, 
utterly  undisturbed :  '  That  is  just  what  I  say— 
vyshodsy.' 

But  one  mistake  like  this  is  not  much  amongst 
the  number  thirty-two,  is  it  ?  I  think  this  should 
be  rather  encouraging,  and  not  alarming. 

But  what  may  seem,  perhaps,  really  alarm- 
ing is  the  fact  that  we  have  no  word  for  '  respect- 


ADJECTIVE  PARTICIPLE,  IN  THREE  GENDERS  AND 
Six  CASES. 

Masculine.  Feminine.  Neuter. 

Nominative :  shokiruyushi  — slichaya          shcheye 

Genitive  :  shokiruyushchago  — slichey 

Dative :  shokiruyushchemu  

Accusative :  shchuyu 

Ablative :  shokiruyushchim 

Prepositional :  shokiruyushchem 

ADJECTIVE  PARTICIPLE,  PAST  TENSE. 

Neuter. 


Nominative  : 
Genitive  : 
Dative  : 
Accusative  : 
Ablative  : 
Prepositional  : 

Isn't  it  fun  ! 

Masculine, 
shokirovavshi, 
shokirovavshago 
shokirovavshemu 

Feminine. 
—  shaya 
—  shey 

shuyu 

shokirovavshim 
shokirovavshem 

The  poor  original  '. 

English  '  sh 

lost  and  deprived  of  all  its  withering  power  amongst  the  variety 
of  the  all-important  and  indispensable  terminations.     There 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE          7 

ability  ' — and,  what  is  worse,  that  we  use  this 
English  definition  (just  with  a  Kussian  ending: 
respectabel'nost')  with  a  distinct  touch  of  humour 
too.  We  don't  need  this  characteristic,  somehow  ! 
The  qualities  which  go  with  us  to  build  up  people's 
reputation  are  rather  different.  I  shall  mention 
them  later. 

Nor  are  there  any  definitions  in  Eussian  to  cor- 
respond with  the  '  bank  holiday '  and  'week-end/ 
Bank  holidays  are  so  numerous  in  our  country 
(about  a  score  of  them  or  more  x)  that  we  cannot 
help  a  feeling  of  surprise  when  we  first  see  the 
national  importance  attached  to  them  in  England. 
There  is  no  universal  rushing  from  one  place  to 
another  on  the  Eussian  (  bank  '  holidays. 

are  not  two  amongst  them  that  would  be  similar,  as  I  left  out 
all  those  that  are  duplicates.  If  you  count  them  you  will  find 
thirty-two  different  endings  to  the  English  four :  shock,  shocks, 
shocked,  and  shocking.  We  couldn't  possibly  do  with  them 
alone,  although  we  have  only  three  tenses. 

But  it  is  not  at  all  as  dreadful  as  it  looks:  for  one  thing, 
please  note  that  we  have  one  letter  for  each  of  the  English  com- 
binations that  occur  amongst  these  endings — sh,  shch,  yu,  ye, 
ya.  Therefore,  our  words  are  much  shorter  than  their  English 
'  backward-transliterations.'  Besides,  I  am  giving  my  reader 
a  glimpse  into  that  seemingly  hopeless  labyrinth  of  the  Russian 
grammar  straight  away,  with  the  conscious  purpose  of  leading 
him  out  of  it  on  to  a  much  wider  road  hereafter;  then  the 
beauties  of  our  language,  which  illustrate  its  inner  spirit,  will, 
I  hope,  reconcile  him  with  this  undoubtedly  difficult  technical 
detail.  There  is  nothing  more  dreadful  than  this  to  come  ! 

1  Saints'  days  and  Royal  Family  birthdays  and  names' 
days.  They  are  holidays  for  the  banks  as  well  as  for  everyone 
else. 


8          THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIK  LANGUAGE 

It  must  be  for  that  same  reason  that  the  expres- 
sion '  week-end  '  is  absent  as  well :  it  would  prob- 
ably not  have  come  into  being  with  the  English 
people  either  if  they  didn't  make  so  much  of  it. 
The  inner  cause  rests,  of  course,  with  the  organiza- 
tion of  English  life ;  with  us,  people  idle  in  the  week- 
days as  frequently  as  they  work  like  niggers  l  on 
Saturdays  and  Sundays  of  their  own  accord.  The 
spirit  of  self-organization  innate  with  the  Eussian 
masses  lies  not  with  the  dividing  of  everyday  life 
into  little  squares  generally,  but  only  with  organ- 
izing certain  public  functions  from  the  point  of 
view  of  national  need. 

We  also  have  no  '  job  '  or  '  business  '  in  Russian : 
'  deed  '  and  '  work  '  (d'elo,  rabota)  cover  these  two 
conceptions  without  which  the  English  language  is 
unimaginable.  Therefore,  the  expression  '  a  good 
job  '  translated  into  Russian  by  one  who  does  not 
know  English  life  closely  would  run  '  a  kind  deed  ' 
—which  is  not  often  the  same  thing  ! 

Neither  have  we  '  enjoy,'  as  understood  in  Eng- 
lish. We  enjoy  Nature,  love,  work  (not  always  !), 
art,  rest,  fresh  air,  space,  freedom — but  we  don't 
bring  the  idea  of  enjoyment  down  to  cold  mutton 
or  a  cup  of  tea.  In  the  same  way  we  use  the  word 
'  happy  '  very  sparingly :  it  signifies  too  much  with 
us  to  be  used  in  reference  to  a  comfortable  chair, 
or  a  motor  ride,  or  a  couple  of  sandwiches,  or  the 

1  We  say  '  like  oxen.' 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE          9 

fire-side.  But  when  we  happen  to  see  a  really 
good  play  in  England  we  feel  astonished  and  hurt 
by  the  lukewarm  reception  of  an  English  house. 
In  Kussia  we  almost  decline  to  go  home  to  bed 
after  having  listened  to  a  fine  opera.  We'll  sit  in 
some  square  (when  the  lights  are  extinguished  in 
the  theatre)  and  go  on  humming  the  captivating 
tunes  till  the  early  hours.  Or  we  shall  wake  our 
cook  (who  is  not  easily  surprised),  have  a  hot 
samovar,  and  go  on  enthusiastically  at  our  piano. 
Very  funny  and  very  unhealthy  ?  Quite  so  !  But 
— who  enjoys,  who  really  enjoys  life  most  ?  .  .  . 
This  remains  an  open  question  when  it  comes  to  An  open 

.  .        question. 

Nature  and  Art.  A  Russian  is  more  at  one  with 
Nature  around  him;  he  does  not  constantly  find 
faults  with  her  being  now  too  cold,  now  too  close, 
now  too  windy. 

We  find  that  in  England  Nature  is  quite  over- 
shadowed by  weather.  Living  even  in  the  most 
beautiful  of  English  counties,  in  the  country,  we 
realize  that  it  is  hardly  polite  to  begin  a  conversa- 
tion with  anything  besides  weather.  (It  is  like  the 
Belgians'  '  Bonjour,  madame !  Bonjour,  mon- 
sieur !  '  without  which  they  won't  let  you  off,  even 
if  you  come  to  tell  them  a  bit  of  splendid  news  about 
the  war  !) 

In  fact,  a  degradation  from  the  proper  subject— 
which  is  prescribed  once  for  ever  as  a  kind  of  greet- 
ing and  an  opening  paragraph  to  every  imaginable 


10         THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

conversation — is  regarded  in  this  country  as  in- 
credible. I  had  to  come  to  that  conclusion  finally 
after  my  own  naive  departure  the  other  day. 
A  side-  It  was  raining  to  that  extent  when  even  a  Eussian 
would  be  likely  to  pass  a  remark  that '  the  swamps 
of  heaven  have  given  way ' — -Razverzlis'  Wab'i 
n'eb'esnyia!  It  seemed  quite  superfluous  to  tell 
everyone  you  met  in  the  flooded  roads  that  it  was 
'  very  wet.'  As  I  tried  to  distinguish  through  the 
waterfall  coming  from  my  umbrella  who  was  the  lady 
approaching  me  from  the  opposite  direction,  I  made 
a  mistake,  and  took  her  for  quite  a  different  and 
somewhat  unpleasant  person.  Therefore,  when  she 
turned  out  to  be  her  real  self,  I  rather  rejoiced  at  the 
revelation  and,  passing  by  her,  called  out  cheerfully : 
'  Hullo,  Mrs.  So-and-So  !  I  had  not  recognized 
you.  Are  you  all  right  ?  ' 

But,  before  I  finished  my  ejaculation,  she  ex- 
claimed in  her  turn : 

'  Isn't  it  ?  Very  wet  indeed.' 
She  would  not  wait  to  hear  what  I  was  saying, 
obviously  crediting  me  with  sufficient  sense  not  to 
talk  about  anything  except  the  deluge  through 
which  we  were  marching.  Her  answer  was  ready 
for  everyone  whom  she  might  meet  along  the  three 
miles'  stretch  of  the  road,  and  no  frivolous  flight 
was  expected  from  anyone's  imagination. 

I   simply  cannot  understand  how  an  English 
postman  can  repeat  pleasantly  the  same  remark 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        11 

about  the  weather  literally  at  every  door  as  he  de- 
livers the  letters !  Ours  always  does  (I  once 
followed  him  all  along  his  tour  round  the  village). 
A  Russian  postman  would  have  to  do  so  if  his 
authorities  had  issued  a  circular  for  that  end;  but 
he  would  vehemently  complain,  in  privacy,  that, 
'  Now  it  has  come  to  dragging  the  soul  out  of  a  man 
bit  by  bit.' 

I  don't  think  a  single  Eussian  could  do  it — leaving 
alone  the  fact  that  it  would  never  occur  to  him  as 
an  interesting  thing  to  do.  We  frequently  burst 
out  with  something  that  forms  an  interest  in 
common  between  us,  omitting  even  the  word  of 
greeting1) ;  but  we  don't  say  anything  at  all  if  there 
is  nothing  to  say. 

We  had  once  a  Polish  count  staying  with  us  here 
one  hot  summer.  After  his  first  visit  to  the  shops  of 
the  little  country  town  the  poor  elegant  old  gentle- 
man returned  quite  upset  and  indignant. 

'  What  on  earth  makes  them  all  tell  me  that  it 
is  very  warm,  when  they  see  me  almost  melting 
away  ?  .  .  .  And  they  insist  on  my  answer,  too  ! 
....  I  call  it  perfectly  inconsidered — brutal. 
Queer  form  of  civilization  !  .  .  .' 

It  really  does  seem  that  there  is  too  much 
'  weather '  in  England.  Certainly,  there  is  a  sec- 
tion of  public  who  almost  live  out  of  doors — but 

1  Zdrastvuyt'e  ! — the  same  for  all  hours  of  day  or  night, 
deriving  from  the  ancient:  '  Keep  well !" 


12         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

what  a  minority  they  are  !  Those  English  people 
who  have  visited  Kussia  reproach  us  for  having 
warm  houses  and  no  open  windows  in  the  winter 
(they  seldom  notice  the  small  opening  pane  in  the 
double  winter-windows) — but  that  is  what  we  call 
comfort:  no  woollen  underwear  (which  we  can't 
stand),  and  yet  no  shivering;  both  of  which  are 
inevitable  in  this  country.  And  is  there  one 
Englishman  who  would  actually  passionately  love 
snow  and  frost — not  for  the  sake  of  sport,  but 
for  the  sake  of  their  own  beauty  ?  For  the  sake 
of  wide,  wide  distances  snow-covered  from  horizon 
to  horizon  ?  .  .  .  To  us  they  are  full  of  silently - 
suggestive  beauty — something  of  the  kind  you  get 
in  a  sleep  when  you  are  surrounded  with  distinctly- 
felt  fascination  without  being  able  to  tell,  when  you 
wake  up,  of  what  it  really  consisted.  .  .  . 

And  we  never  see  English  people  lying  on  the 
grass  for  hours,  and  missing  their  meals  for  the  pure 
pleasure  of  it.  As  to  midnight  walks,  and  boating, 
and  bathing,  they  seem  to  be  out  of  the  question 
in  this  lovely  green  little  island  !  Half  of  its 
beauty  is  simply  wasted.  The  only  explanation 
may  be  that  we  do  not  give  up  our  afternoons  to 
enjoy  Nature  in  a  decent,  organized  way  by  means 
of  out-door  games,  and  thus  crave  for  her  in  the 
evenings  and  nights.  But  in  England,  the  moment 
the  lamps  are  lit  the  curtains  must  be  drawn,  and, 
if  you  are  a  Eussian — maybe  choking  in  the  at- 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        13 

mosphere  of  a  drawing-room  after  late  dinner — 
you  must  not  suggest  to  the  party  such  a  thing  as 
going  out  into  the  garden  at  this  hour  !  And  if 
you  try  to  slip  out  on  the  sly,  you  will  find  all  the 
doors  locked  and  bolted.  It  is  simply  hopeless— 
unless  you  have  enough  sense  of  humour  to  enjoy 
it  inwardly. 

Why,  there  are  but  a  few  amongst  the  beautiful 
English  gardens  where  there  are  any  seats  ! 

But — so  much  for  the  weather. 

Perhaps  I  have  succeeded  in  trying  to  explain 
that  we  are  endowed  with  the  capacity  of  enjoying 
what,  in  our  conception,  is  worth  '  enjoying  ';  but, 
nevertheless,  we  do  not  apply  this  word  itself  so 
lavishly  and  so  casually  as  it  is  applied  in  this  coun- 
try. One  might  think  that  we  are  spoiled  by  an 
overflow  of  happiness  to  the  extent  of  not  appre- 
ciating the  blessings  of  the  established  everyday 
comforts ;  but  it  is  not  that.  The  fact  is,  we  think 
too  highly  of  happiness  and — as  one  rarely  gets  the 
happiness  as  understood  by  a  Russian — the  two 
words  '  enjoyment '  and  '  happiness '  (naslajd'e  dye, 
schastye)  are  left  in  their  glorious  heights. 

For  the  same  reason  we  don't  use  the  verb  '  to 
love '  in  the  everyday  English  manner :  '  I  would 
love  to,'  or,  '  this  is  lovely.'  The  first  of  these  ex- 
pressions does  not  exist  at  all,  and  the  second  is 
used  (as  an  adverb)  exclusively  with  reference  to 
actions  resulting  from  serious  profound  affection; 


14        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

whilst  '  lovely  hair,'  '  lovely  dinner,'  '  lovely  bit 
of  fun  '  would  sound  in  Russian  absurd  and  comical, 
and  such  expressions  are  never  used. 

1  ^or  ^°  we  use  t^Le  worc^  '  l°vers  '  indiscreetly 
tion.  — although,  strangely  enough,  for  quite  a  different 
reason.  In  Russia  '  lovers '  means,  exclusively,  man 
and  woman  who  live  in  intimacy  out  of  wedlock  with- 
out necessarily  being  tied  by  bonds  of  true  affection 
or  mutual  moral  obligations.  There  are  many  cases 
in  every  country  where  people  live  like  that,  and  in 
Russia  they  are  numerous  too;  but  with  us  they 
are  considered  as  quite  different  and  distinct  from 
the  unions  of  beautiful,  serious  free  love — when 
man  and  woman,  though  unwedded,  live  openly 
and  honestly  together,  cherishing  their  home  and 
bringing  up  their  children:  in  such  cases  they  are 
called  husband  and  wife,  because,  in  our  conviction 
they  are  husband  and  wife;  even  the  servants  and 
the  police  (!)  call  the  woman  bdryn'a,  which  means 
a  married  lady,  and  not  baryshn'a,  which  means 
miss.  This  is  done  with  the  mere  feeling  of  decency 
and  consideration,  leaving  alone  the  higher  convic- 
tions, simply  because  '  lovers  '  is  a  very  coarse 
word,  implying  mainly  casual,  physical — and  in  any 
case  not  openly  admitted  relations.  And  again, 
even  when  they  are  casual  and  not  open,  but  are 
guessed — one  does  not  apply  the  proper  definition, 
except  in  privacy,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  is 
not  the  way  with  the  Russians  to  interfere  with, 


THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         15 

or  to  discuss,  other  people's  private  affairs,  unless 
they  themselves  make  them  public. 

Then,  on  the  other  hand,  Kussian  boys  and  girls 
are  not  given  to  '  outings  '  with  their  arms  round 
each  other's  waists.     This  parading  and  passionless 
kissing  in  the  streets  and  gateways  are  not  in  the 
Eussian  taste.     There  is  much  frankness  about  the 
Russians,  which  means  conscious  acknowledgment 
of  one's  convictions — but  no   nai'veness.     What- 
ever the  reader  will  find  in  this  book  with  regard  to 
the  psychology  of  the  Russians,  he  must  not  imagine 
that  they  are  naive  !     Their  '  warmth  of  heart,'  as 
we  say,  is  much  deeper  than  naivsness;  we  draw  a 
line — a  very  distinct  one,  too — between  the  latter 
and  the  openness  of  mind  and  feeling.     It  is  due  to 
this  national  feature  that  our  boys  and  girls  who 
are  in  love  with  each  other  would  hate  to  have  any 
definition  stuck  on  to  them  like  a  badge.     As  to 
the  one  of  '  lovers  ' — well,  I  hope  I  have  explained 
sufficiently  clearly  that  this  word  defines  exclusively 
that  kind  of  intimacy  which  does  not  stand  airing 
very  well,  because  it  is  on  a  different  scale  from  the 
open  free  unions.     Therefore  it  should  be  clear  that 
our  young  people  would  not  dream  of  calling  them- 
selves '  lovers '   when  engaged,  either.     We  have 
genuine  Russian  words  for  fiance  and  fiancee,  by 
which  we  call  them — when  they  wish  it.     (But  it 
also  ought  to  be  remembered,  by  the  way,  that  we 
have  nothing  like  the  English  showers  of  wedding 


16         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

presents  in  our  country:  somehow  we  don't  think 
about  the  future  household  of  those  engaged. 
It  is  not  their  friends'  business  in  Eussia.) 

Finally,"  I  am  quite  ready  to  admit  that,  with  us, 
the  definition  '  lover  '  (I'ubdvnik)  is  somewhat  an 
offence  against  its  original  meaning.  But  so  it 
may  be  here:  with  us  it  is  too  specific — with  you 
too  casual.  We  never  know  what  to  think  exactly 
when  people  in  England  are  called  lovers  (with  us 
the  definition  is,  at  least,  far  from  being  vague  !), 
and  when  this  is  done  in  an  English  company  it 
makes  us  feel  a  little  bit  awkward — at  the  expense 
of  the  speaker's  lack  of  delicacy  ! 

***** 
The   atti-     It  is  seldom  that  you  meet,  amongst  the  educated 

tudeofthe_  .    .  °     .  .. 

Russian  Russians,  people  who  are  interested  in  the  details 
general,—  of  everyday  life.  One  goes  into  them  as  one  joins 
the  unavoidable  current  of  the  crowd  in  the  street, 
but  there  is  always,  above  and  ahead  of  it,  some 
eventual  aim,  something  much  more  important 
which  one  follows  consciously  or  instinctively, 
which  makes  the  surroundings  of  practical  life 
almost  meaningless  in  comparison.  This  causes 
the  absence  in  Russia  of  spick-and-span  households ; 
it  also  causes,  to  a  greater  or  smaller  extent,  dis- 
orderliness  in  the  arrangements  of  one's  time;  and, 
what  is  worse,  disorderliness  in  the  home  education 
of  children.  But  one  of  the  worst  criticisms  that 
can  be  passed  by  a  Russian  on  another  is  the  remark 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        17 

that  he  or  she  is  '  trifling '  (melochnoy),  which 
means  attaching  too  much  importance  to  a  beauti- 
ful household,  to  etiquette,  to  money,  to  dress. 

On  the  other  hand,  devoting  one's  whole  time 
entirely  to  some  altruistic  and  absorbing  activity 
(to  the  verge  of  foolishness  from  a  practical  point 
of  view)  is  sincerely  respected  as  a  contrast  to 
'  triflingness.'  By  the  way,  this  last  word  is  almost 
the  same  as  the  one  for  small  change,  coppers;  the 
additional  syllable  only  conveys  the  conception 
that  triflingness  is  '  coppers  '  morally,  as  it  were : 
melcch',  melochnost'. 

For  similar  reasons,  the  word  '  fool '  is  a  pro-  —and  re- 
found  insult.     One  does  not  apply  it  to  people  in  fools, 
the  way  of  a  joke  !     But,  again,  another  syllable 
added  to  it  turns  it  at  once  into  a  term  of  compassion 
for  those  who  really  are  fools — idiots,  backward 
children,  religious  maniacs.     Thus,  durak  is  very 
offensive,  whilst  durachoJc  is  sympathetic. 

A  broad  outlook,  cleverness,  and  initiative  are  —and 
qualities  on  which  a  person's  value  is  very  largely  ness, 
established.     If  some  one  has  a  reputation  for  being 
clever,  one  respects  him  without  having  seen  him, 
taking  it  for  granted  that  a  clever  person  is  a  nice 
person,  too.     This  last  touch  in  the  way  of  judging 
people  is  typically  Russian,  because  with  us  the 
most  brilliant  cleverness  without  a  good  heart — a 
cold,  practical,  mercantile  kind  of  cleverness  weigh- 
ing up  the  possible  result  of  action  beforehand — 


18         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

gives  a  person  the  reputation  of  '  a  cunning  business 
man/  or '  a  carryerist,'  which  calls  forth  the  silence 
of  disapproval.  That  is  why  the  Germans  have 
never  been  liked  by  the  mass  of  the  Russian  people. 
They  were  spoken  of  with  a  shake  of  one's  head, 
as  '  those  cunning  Germans  !'  On  the  whole,  the 
Russians'  drawback  is  of  a  diametrically  opposing 
nature :  they  are  not  sufficiently  business-like. 

The  highest  praise  one  can  give  in  Russia  to 
—and  re- man  or  woman  is  to  call  them  'responsive,' 
ness.  otzyvchivy*  and  chutki  :  responsive  to  everything; 
this  means  keeping  one's  heart  and  mind  open  to 
other  people's  joys,  sadness,  dreams,  sharing  them 
genuinely;  and,  above  all,  responsive  to  every 
social  call,  to  every  bit  of  initiative,  every  vestige 
of  new  thought.  This  is  where  we  used  to  find 
England  so  '  heavy  to  lift '  (t'ajela  na  podyom). 
With  us  every  new  idea,  plan  or  invention, 
every  change  in  the  old  routine,  is  welcome 
and  appreciated — everywhere  except  the  Govern- 
ment offices;  and  even  there  one  notices  changes 
taking  place  now.  ...  '  The  New '  has  always 

1  In  this  case  the  tz  must  be  pronounced  as  two  separate 
sounds — a  clear  z  following  the  t.  This  illustrates  the  draw- 
back of  the  English  alphabet  not  having  a  sign  for  the  sound 
if;  because  a  tz  stands  with  us  for  t  and  z,  and  not  for  ty- 
But  we  have  to  apply  the  English  tz  or  ts  in  order  to  convey 
its  sound — because,  again,  the  Latin  c,  which  might  do,  stands 
in  English  for  a  &-sound  (a  thing  unthinkable  in  our  alphabet), 
and  thus  falls  out  from  the  scanty  row  of  mediums, 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         19 

been  accepted  with  outstretched  arms  in  all 
branches  of  science,  art,  and  literature,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  individualistic  development  of 
social  life.  Even  amongst  peasants  one  never 
sees  the  spirit  of  '  our  parents  did  it  this  way,  so 
it  must  be  right.'  On  the  contrary — '  to  see  light ' 
is  their  expression  for  learning  new  things.  New— 
always  new  !  Ahead  and  ahead  !  That  is  why  the 
Russians  so  closely  follow  the  achievements  of 
Western  Europe,  ever  expecting  to  learn  new  things 
from  outside,  and  not  noticing  that  it  is  often 
themselves  who  first  step  into  the  unexplored  paths. 
This  is  very  notable  with  the  Russian  women. 
They  were  the  first  amongst  European  women 
to  flock  to  Universities,  to  become  scientists 
and  social  leaders.  And  it  is  a  Russian  woman 
who  is  the  first  aviator  for  *  war  reconnaissance  ' 
in  the  official  service  of  the  Russian  Government. 
Now  it  looks  as  if  all  Intelligentzia  were  out  equip- 
ping and  working  the  network  of  most  efficient 
private  hospitals  throughout  the  country  and  the 
'  Flying  Detachments  of  Medical  Aid  and  Nour- 
ishment at  the  front.'  Men  and  women  of  science, 
late  revolutionaries,  aristocratic  ladies,  peasant- 
students,  clergy,  artists,  and  atheists,  all  side  by 
side,  as  near  the  firing  line  as  possible,  whilst 
several  young  girls  have  been  given  the  Order  of 
St.  George  for  their  heroism  in  actual  fighting,  as 
they  joined  the  rank  and  file.  Their  presence  on 


20        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

the  battlefield  depends  exclusively  on  the  views 
of  their  nearest  chiefs,  and  these  hardly  ever  send 
them  back  when  the  secret  of  their  sex  is  disclosed, 
and  a  nursing  sister,  who  has  deliberately  taken  the 
command  of  a  battalion  when  she  saw  all  its  officers 
fall  in  the  course  of  an  attack,  was  rewarded  by  a 
St.  George  Cross.  All  this  we  call '  responsiveness ' : 
'  otzyvchivost' . 
Quality  Chutkost' — deriving  from  the  above-mentioned 

causing 

respon-     adjective  chuiki — is  a  very  Russian  word;  it  means 

siveness,  1111  r  • 

an  extremely  developed  sense  ot  what  a  scientist 
would  call  a  flair  for  discovering  the  mood  and 
position  of  others;  an  extreme  tact  alive  not  merely 
with  diplomacy,  but  with  genuine  refinement  of 
feeling:  not  only  thinking  for,  but  feeling  with. 
It  is  reflected  in  the  saying,  '  One  does  not  mention 
ropes  in  the  house  of  a  man  who  has  been  hanged.' 
The  difference  between  chutkost'  and  the  English 
word  consideration,  by  which  it  is  usually  trans- 
lated, should  be  clear  from  the  fact  that  '  con- 
sideration '  refers  to  a  mental  attitude  only, 
whereas  the  root  of  this  Russian  definition  is 
chutyo,  implying  the  instinctive  capacity  of 
'  scenting  things.' 

— mustra-     I  have  once  seen  a  fine  instance  of  chutkost'  at 

instance  at  an  English  school.  .  .  .     The  staff  and  the  elder 

school.      children  (men  and  women,  boys  and  girls)  staged 

for   a    school  entertainment,   '  H.M.S.  Pinafore.9 

Everyone  belonging  to  and  connected  with  the 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIK  LANGUAGE        21 

school- world — including  the  villagers,  who  worked 
in  the  school  grounds — was  present  at  the 
performance.  In  the  scene  on  the  deck  when  the 
Captain,  Josephine,  and  Sir  Joseph  Porter,  '  the 
ruler  of  the  Queen's  navy  '  are  dancing,  in  turns, 
to  the  sounds  of  their  exciting  strains,  the  master 
who  played  the  captain's  part  slipped  and  fell. 
He  was  very  nimble,  although  not  young,  and, 
in  another  moment,  continued  his  solo-dance  as 
gaily  as  before.  But,  beloved  as  he  was  by  the 
audience,  there  escaped  loud  laughter  from  the 
younger  boys  and  girls,  who  are  used  and  free  at 
that  school  to  express  many  things  born  of  frank- 
ness and  naturalness  which  are  not  allowed  at 
many  other  places.  In  another  few  minutes,  when 
dancing  solo  in  his  turn,  '  Sir  Joseph  '  fell  too  ! 
On  the  very  same  spot  where  the  captain  had 
slipped,  only  much  worse  !  .  .  .  The  '  ruler  of 
the  Queen's  navy  '  was  a  much  younger  master 
than  the  '  captain,'  and,  besides,  one  who  was  the 
children's  usual  comrade  in  all  sorts  of  fun,  so  their 
laughter  burst  forth  this  time  with  particular 
vigour — exactly  what  the  little  manoeuvre  of  the 
'  ruler  '  was  intended  to  produce. 

Wasn't  that  manoeuvre  prompted  by  true  chut- 
kost',  both  of  a  friend  and  of  a  master  ?  He 
certainly  never  breathed  to  anyone  about  it; 
but  all  amongst  the  children  who  possessed 
some  chutkost'  in  their  turn  guessed  the  little 


22        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

trick,    and    it    taught   them   something   for    the 
future. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  it  is  impossible  to  call  in 
English  this  master  by  what  is  such  a  nice  term  of 
appreciation  in  Eussian. 

TOO  much  With  the  Russians  this  chutkost'  is  sometimes 
carried  too  far.  The  other  day  a  Russian  friend 
of  mine,  descending  from  a  taxi  in  London,  looked 
at  the  taximeter,  and  saw  that  it  showed  one-and- 
tenpence.  Nevertheless,  he  politely  asked  the 
driver  how  much  the  fare  was.  The  man  looked 
at  the  apparatus  and  said,  '  Half-a-crown.'  The 
Russian  pretended  that  he  never  noticed  the 
swindling,  gave  the  man  two-and-eightpence,  and 
silently  went  his  way.  He  did  so  instinctively, 
not  wanting  to  make  the  man  feel  uncomfort- 
able ! 

To  sum  up  the  Russian  epithets  of  appreciation 
I  must  say  that  the  whole  row  of  those  that  build 
up  in  our  mind  the  most  charming  characteriza- 
tion of  a  person  is  exclusively  nationally-Russian. 
Here  it  is:  otzyvchivy,  cliiitki,  privetlivy,  laskovy. 
The  first  two  of  these  adjectives  have  been  just 
explained;  the  third  is  derived  from  the  definition 
of  kind  greeting  and  means  the  spontaneous  gift 
of  friendliness  and  sociability;  a  verbal  translation 
in  English  would  be  derived  from  salute:  but  this 
word  has  no  warmth  emanating  from  it;  again, 
laskovy  means  (  caressive,'  as  applied  to  the  nature 
and  ways  of  a  person;  it  is  our  national  variety  of 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         23 

the  English  '  goodness,'  as  it  emphatically  implies 
not  only  being  good  inwardly,  but  letting  other 
people  benefit  by  the  visible  and  '  feel-able  '  qual- 
ities of  a  good  heart.  The  Eussian  language 
would  cease  to  be  Russian  without  these  four 
adjectives.  All  of  them  rolled  into  one  in  English 
(kind)  does  not  satisfy  us  ! 

As  far  as  we  can  judge  from  some  new  touches 
now  finding  their  way  into  the  English  life,  it  seems 
that  war  is  adding  some  Idskovost'  and  chutkost'  to 
the  English  kindness.  If  I  may  pass  a  Russian's 
opinion  on  this  evolution — it  is  a  beautiful  one. 
England  is  swarming  with  kind  people,  but  they 
sometimes  fail  to  satisfy  us.  So  many  of  the  kind 
English  people  are  not  at  all  interesting  ! — while 
with  us  this  is  another  quality  essential  as  an  in- 
gredient of  attractiveness.  No  one  who  is  chutki 
pan  fail  in  being  interesting,  because  a  chutki  person 
has  refined  feelers  in  his  mind  and  heart  for  every- 
thing, near  or  far,  as  it  were,  and  you  cannot  fail 
being  interesting  in  your  turn  if  you  take  interest 
in  other  people's  interests.  Whereas  one  can  be 
'  very  kind  '  without  emerging  from  one's  own 
castle  and  without  listening  to  the  vibrations  of 
the  world  around.  '  Many-sided  '  is  a  term  of 
great  appreciation  with  us  (versus  the  English 
'  specialist '),  and  always  is  understood  to  go  along- 
side with  the  definition  '  chutki/ 

I  knew  an  English  lady  shop-keeper  of  seventy- 
five  who  used  to  tell  me  with  immense  satisfaction : 


24        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

( I  was  born  in  this  house,  married  in  it,  and 
lived  in  it  always,  and  hope  to  die  in  it '  (she  did). 
'  We  were  so  happy  !  Neither  my  dear  husband 
nor  myself  ever  wanted  to  go  anywhere  else,  and 
I  have  scarcely  been  on  any  other  road  in  this 
place  than  that  between  our  gate  and  the  church. 
We  had  no  children,  you  see,  so  there  was  no  need 
to  bustle  about,  and  I  never  had  any  trouble  with 
our  servants,  because  we  were  always  kind  to  them. 
I  feel  so  thankful  for  my  happy  life  !'  she  would 
add  in  perfect  sincerity. 

Well,  that  woman  was  always  called  '  Dear, 
kind  old  soul  P  But — I  wonder  whether  this  war 
would  have  given  her  a  beneficial  shock,  if  she  had 
lived  now.  Certainly,  her  example  is  an  extreme 
one,  but  extremes  very  often  are  the  best  means 
of  explaining  an  idea,  and  I  would  just  like  to  show 
the  difference  between  the  English  conception  of 
kindness,  or  good  heart,  and  our  conception  of 
laskovost'  (caressiveness),  jrbzyvchivost'  (respons- 
iveness), and  chutkost'  (?!  .  .  .)  all  of  them  being 
absolutely  essential  features  of  a  good  heart,  as 
we  understand  it.  A  fine  violin-string  answers  not 
only  to  the  touch  of  its  master's  fingers,  but  to  a 
breeze  sending  its  whisper  through  the  open 
window,  to  the  light  step  of  a  butterfly  that  rests 
on  it  for  a  second,  and  to  every  mellow  voice 
ringing  in  the  house.  .  .  . 


THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIB  LANGUAGE        25 
Another  very  Russian  word,  a  noun,  is  prostor  The  be- 

loved  Rus- 

(thereis  another  one,  mzdolye,  for  the  same  idea),  sian   con- 

ception  ; 

It  breathes  of  the  distinctively  Slavonic  passion  Prostor. 
for  yet  another  aspect  of  freedom.  It  bursts  from 
Russian  lips  at  the  sight  of  space,  far  vistas,  broad 
rivers,  blue  seas,  steppes,  golden  corn-fields  waving 
from  horizon  to  horizon.  .  .  .  Beautiful  scenery 
which  has  no  prostor  about  it  is  certainly  admired 
and  enjoyed,  but  after  a  while  one  longs  for  places 
where  one  can  see  wide,  wide  distances — even  if 
these  are  but  flat  valleys  with  '  a  few  birch-trees, 
a  few  pines,  some  moss,  some  sand,  some  clay, 
some  marshes  .  .  .  .'  I  knew  of  an  ordinary 
priest  from  the  district  of  Kaluga,  in  the  centre 
of  Russia,  who  was  once  sent  with  the  staff  of  a 
Grand  Duke  to  Abass-Tuman — a  place  of  almost 
fantastic  beauty  in  the  heart  of  the  Caucasian 
mountains.  Being  somewhat  plump  and  simple, 
the  man  did  not  trouble  to  make  any  excursions. 
He  stayed  the  whole  summer  in  the  magnificent 
glen  where  the  palace  was  situated,  and  he  very 
nearly  pined  away. 

'  Well,  Father  Vasili,  did  you  like  the  Caucasus  ? ' 
people  asked  him  on  his  return. 

1  Couldn't  see  any  of  it,'  he  answered  indiffer- 
ently :  '  Mountains  on  your  right,  mountains  on 
your  left.  Nothing  to  be  seen  at  all.  What  a 
difference  here,  in  our  Kalujskaya  Gruberniya  !' 
and  he  stroked  his  large  beard  with  profound  relief. 


26         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

The  Kalujskaya  district  is  as  flat  as  a  pan- 
cake. 

This  typical  incident  came  home  to  me  when  I 
was  showing  an  excursion  party  of  Russians  the 
beauties  of  Oxford.  They  enthusiastically  went 
into  all  the  details  of  historical  architecture,  but 
an  afternoon  on  the  winding  tree-sheltered  Cher- 
well  failed  to  impress  them,  and  seemed  to  rob  them 
of  all  their  vitality.  So  next  morning  I  took  them 
to  the  riverside,  beyond  Port  Meadow. 

'  A-ah  !'  they  breathed  deeply,  many  of  them 
throwing  out  their  arms,  '  here  is  a  bit  of  prostor  /' 

The  word  vastness  exists  in  English,  but  it  does 
not  convey  anything  like  so  much  to  the  English 
mind  as  prostor  conveys  to  a  Russian  one.  The 
longing  for  prostor  is  ingrained  in  the  Russian 
heart.  That  is  why  our  smallest  towns  are  leisurely 
spread  over  ground  which  might  hold  ten  times 
more  houses;  and  that  is  why  no  one  would  think 
of  building  a  house  more  than  one  story  high 
which  is  intended  for  one  family  only:  one  likes 
to  feel  room,  space  all  around  one,  before  anything 
else.  That  is  also  why  our  ceilings  are  built  con- 
siderably higher  than  those  in  the  English  houses 
of  corresponding  size. 

Prostor  suggests  to  us  endless  possibilities;  it  is 
the  seed-bed  of  creative  impulse;  it  pours  into 
Russian  art  its  power  of  witching  charm,  and  fills 
the  Russian  heart  to  overflowing  with  the  power 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        27 

of  love.  The  sense  of  size  and  space  impels  a  Rus- 
sian  to  throw  out  his  arms  e  to  embrace  Nature, 
brothers,  foes  and  friends.  .  .  .'  These  are  the 
words  of  a  wonderful  poem  by  Count  Alexey 
Tolstoy.  .  .  . 

At  this  time  embracing  foes  does  not  particu- 
larly appeal  to  the  Russian  mind,  but  it  needed 
much  appalling  cruelty  to  weaken  this  character- 
istic of  all-forgiveness.  Besides,  prostor  is  a  call 
for  free-thought,  for  activity,  for  throwing  one- 
self open,  not  merely  physically,  but  spiritually, 
developing  the  mental  receptivity.  That  is  why 
every  new  idea,  social  or  religious,  is  absorbed  so 
speedily  all  over  the  immense  land. 

I  understand  that,  coming  out  on  a  fine  morn- 
ing, feeling  '  full  of  beans,'  an  Englishman  some- 
what approaches  the  feeling  which  a  Russian 
experiences  when  his  mood  is  blending  with  the 
surrounding  prostor.  If  I  am  right,  then  the 
following  simple  verses  by  a  modern  poet,  which 
are  translatable  almost  literally,  must  carry  the 
atmosphere  with  them : 

'  The  day  of  spring  is  hot  and  golden, 
The  town  is  blinded  by  the  sun. 
I  am  myself  again  !     I'm  merry, 
I'm  young,  and  happy,  and  in  love  ! 
My  soul  will  sing,  will  fly  to  meadows, 
All  strangers  look  akin  to  me  ! 
What  a  prostor  !     What  boundless  freedom  ! 
What  songs  to  sing  !     What  flow'rs  to  see  ! 


28        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Swing  noisily,  Springly-daring  forest ! 
Grow  quickly,  grass  !     Come,  lilac,  bloom  ! 
Evil  is  dead,  all  worship  justice 
On  a  halcyon  day  that's  come  so  soon  !  ' 

There  is  no  Kussian  writer,  warrior,  Tsar',  priest, 
or  peasant  who  has  not  used  the  word  prostor  over 
and  over  again  in  his  life  lovingly.  Why,  even 
hopeless  bureaucrats  and  police  are  sure  to  love 
the  prostor — physically,  at  least,  if  their  spiritual 
longing  for  it  has  been  atrophied  ! 

#  #  #  #  # 

Mr.  Pearsall  Smith,  in  his  book,  The  English 
Language,  says: 

*  The  progress  in  English  is  due,  not  to  the  pros- 
perity of  the  nation,  but  to  the  national  disasters 
—the  Danish  invasion  and  the  Norman  Conquest.' 
Foreign         Now,    we   had   no    such   beneficent    invasions ! 
the'  Vus-  Russia  was  coming  into  existence  through  her  own 
0"  turmoil.     Peter  the  Great  brought  the  first  series 
of   Latin-rooted    and    Teutonic    words    with   his 
organization  of  the   States-machinery  and  intro- 
duction of  scientific  technique  into  the  land.     A 
good  many  of  these  Western  words  are  still  in 
constant  use,  and  some  of  them  have  no  equivalent 
in  the  original  Russian.     And  here  the  Russians 
ought  to  be  blamed  for  their  ever-present  passion 
for  '  the  new  light  from  the  West ' ;  for  in  most  cases 
pure  Russian  words  could  be  brought  in  by  merely 
thinking  of  them,  owing  to  the  creative  elasticity 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         29 

of  the  Slavonic  roots.  It  is  a  perfect  shame  that 
numbers  of  Latinisms  are  used  by  some  modern  Rus- 
sian journalists  as  a  kind  of  literary  chique;  while  the 
French  '  merci '  is  used  by  nearly  all  the  town  popu- 
lation (particularly  so  by  the  half -educated  ones), 
though  we  have  two  genuine  expressions  for  '  thank 
you ' :  the  latter  in  Russian,  once  upon  a  time,  meant 
'  I  give  you  the  gift  of  good  '  (blago-dar'u) ;  and  there 
is  also  another  word,  just  as  Russian,  although  it  has 
lost  its  ancient  form  by  having  dropped  the  last 
letter:  this  word  for  '  thank  you  '  used  to  mean: 
'  God  save  you '  (Spassl  Bog.  Now  it  is  spasslbo). 

The  logical  analytical  subtlety  of  the  Russian 
grammar  is  boundless.  I  know  two  ardent  English 
philologists  who  say  that  it  beats  both  Greek  and 
Latin,  and  needs  a  knowledge  of  several  Western 
languages  to  follow  its  precise  but  winding  paths 
and  its  creative  power. 

For  one  thing,  the  syllables  of  nuances  have  in 
Russian  a  magic  power.  Those  few  that  exist  in  Syllables 
English  (-unlimited,  bespeak,  speeches,  trespass,  Nuances, 
overcome)  will  explain  to  the  reader  what  I  mean 
by  this  denomination.  But  with  us  the  nuances 
are  ever  so  much  more  numerous  and  various: 
they  include  all  prepositions  (to  beat  through,  to 
come  out,  to  come  in),  which  are,  for  the  purpose, 
inseparably  attached  to  the  beginning  of  the  word; 
and,  besides,  there  are  many  syllables  of  nuances 
which  mean  nothing  in  themselves,  but  make  all 


30         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

the  difference  to  the  verbs.  One  of  them,  for 
instance,  consists  of  two  consonants — vz  or  vs— 
and  is  never  used  as  a  preposition  separately,  but, 
joined  to  the  beginning  of  a  verb,  it  gives  it  a  dis- 
tinct idea  of  suddenness.  Thus  the  verb  br'esti 
means  to  wander  about;  razbr'estl  means  to  come 
across  something;  but  vzbr'esti  is  used  exclusively 
in  connection  with  a  thought  which  has  sprung  up 
in  the  brain  unaccountably;  while  t'zobr'esti  means 
to  invent :  rather  a  subtle  derivation  ! 

Or,  '  to  fly  '  is  altered  by  the  addition  of  vz  into 
'  spurt  up  '  (I9et9et9 — vzZ'et'et').  Speaking  of  a 
bird  we  use  mostly  the  first  of  these  two  varie- 
ties of  the  verb — amongst  a  few  others,  I  must 
say.  But  speaking  of  rockets  and  fireworks,  we 
always  apply  the  second.  We  say  rvat'  about 
tearing  paper  or  cloths;  but  vzorv&t9  means  to 
explode. 

The  verb  used  for  indicating  the  winding  of  a 
brook,  or  of  a  path,  is  transformed  by  the  same  two 
letters  into  one  that  pictures  the  spiral  masses  of 
smoke  and  flames  suddenly  bursting  from  a  burning 
building  (vitsa,  pzyitsa).  More  means  sea;  but 
vzmorye  means  strand — i.e.,  a  kind  of  place  which 
runs  right  up  to  the  sea. 

A  beautiful  new  word  has  been  recently  intro- 
duced by  the  young  writer,  Count  Alexey  Tolstoy, 
for  indicating  a  hilly  district :  he  called  it  a  vsliolm- 
lennaya  district:  holm  meaning  hill,  he  makes  it, 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        31 

as  it  were,  a  '  vs-hillied  '  district.  It  makes  one's 
thoughts  fly  back  for  a  moment  to  the  days  when 
the  crust  of  the  globe  was  undergoing  the  stage  of 
being  vs-hillied  ! 

Bif  means  to  beat,  but  dbit'  means  to  kill; 
there  is  an  in-between  meaning,  too,  created  by  a 
different  syllable  of  nuance — £>obit':  it  means  to 
give  an  extra  vigorous  beating;  w/bit'  means  to 
fight  someone  to  the  effect  of  driving  him  out 
of  his  position,  and  therefore  is  also  (quite  logi- 
cally) applied  to  knocking  and  beating  moths 
out  of  old  furs  or  blankets.  But  rabbit'  has  an 
opposite  meaning:  it  is  a  verb  applied  to  filling 
a  pipe  with  tobacco,  or  stuffing  one's  head  with 
nonsense. 

A  quaint  transformation  happens  to  the  word 
stol :  it  means  table,  but  in  the  ancient  days  prob- 
ably meant  stool  as  well,  because,  with  the  addi- 
tion of  one  little  nuance — prestol — it  turns  into  a 
'  throne  ' :  this  particular  syllable  conveying  here 
the  idea  of—  •'  What  a  table  !  Such  a  table  !  A 
super-table  !' 

Again '^.vrat9  means  to  tell  lies  vigorously  (Igat* 
stands  for  doing  the  same  moderately);  pnvrat' 
means  just  to  add  a  dose  of  fiction  to  cold  truth 
— with  the  longing  for  effect,  maybe  !  Again, 
trus  means  coward ;  and  tiMsovat  means  not  quite  a 
coward,  but  one  who  does  not  like  to  expose  him- 
self to  '  unnecessary  unpleasantness.' 


32         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

The  syllable  na  often  adds  to  a  verb  a  nuance 
of  great  gentleness :  thus,  the  verb  '  to  press  '- 
with  na  preceding  the  root — means  that  sort  of 
pressure  which  a  doctor  would  put  into  his  fingers 
when  examining  the  aching  body  of  an  invalid; 
(jat\  najat').  '  To  sing/  with  that  same  adjoining 
syllable,  means  to  sing  as  gently  as  one  sings  a 
lullaby,  or  to  hum  unconsciously  while  working 
(p'ef ,  wap'evat').  The  verb  '  to  feel '  (slichu- 
pat')  with  one's  fingers  is  quite  a  different  one 
with  us  from  the  verb  conveying  the  idea  of  feeling 
with  one's  heart  (chuvstvcvat')}  well,  the  syllable 
na  added  to  the  first  one,  meaning  to  feel  with  one's 
fingers,  makes  a  verb  which  is  now  used  in  the 
description  of  searchlights  moving  in  the  dark 
(nashchupaf).  ...  On  other  occasions  the  syl- 
lable na  adds  a  decisive  touch  to  the  action:  Zvat9 
=  to  call  someone;  ra&zvat'=to  call  someone  a 
certain  name.  Brat'  =to  take;  ra&brat'  =to  take 
a  lot  of  something.  L'et'et'  =to  fly;  wal'et'et' = 
to  fly  against  something,  etc. 

What  transformations  various  syllables  of  nu- 
ances can  do  when  preceding  the  same  verb  can  be 
seen  from  the  column  below :  the  top  word  consists 
of  the  one-syllable  root  only;  each  of  the  following 
ones  has  a  different  nuance  joining  on  to  it  which 
changes  the  meaning  of  that  one-syllable  root 
thus: 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        33 


To  become 
To   come   into 
being 
To  get  up 
To  get  tired 
To  stop 
To  stick  to 
To  find  (some- 
one) in 

Stat*.        Or: 

Mzstat'. 
Fstat'. 
Efstat'. 
Perestat'. 
Pn'stat'. 

Zastat'. 

To  give 
To  sell 
To  publish 
To  distribute 
To  pass  on 
To  give  a  task 
To  deal  (cards, 
or  to  pass  ex- 
aminations) 
To  add 
To   envelop 
suddenly 

Davctf. 
Prpdavat'. 
/zdavat'. 
JRazdavat'. 
Peredavat'. 

Sdavat'. 
Pn'davat'. 

O&davat'. 

Or,  here  is  one  of  the  cases  of  a  transformation 
of  a  noun;  the  root  of  this  particular  one  meaning 
'  go  '  —  in  any  manner  except  on  foot. 

$yezd  —  A  conference  in  general.  Also  the  time 
when  people  have  begun  to  assemble  for  a  certain 
meeting. 

Razyezd  —  The  time  when  people  are  dispersing 
after  some  meeting. 

Podyezd  —  The  front  porch  (the  place  which  one 
drives  up  to). 

Fyezd  —  A  drive  leading  into  some  place.  Also 
the  moment  of  the  arrival  of  some  prominent 
person  or  party. 

Priyezd  —  The  arrival  of  ordinary  mortals  ! 

Fyiezd  —  A  drive  leading  out,  or  the  moment  of 
departure  both  on  ordinary  and  special  occasions. 

06yezd  —  A  drive  round  a  place,  or  '  being  on  a 
round  of  - 

Proyezd  —  A  drive  through  a  place.  N'et  'pro- 
yezda  /=No  thoroughfare  ! 


34        THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Nayezdy   (plur.) — Casual    visits    from  time   to 
time. 
The  char-      The  one  syllable  that  makes  the  verb  '  to  be' 

andflexi-  (but')  is  transformed   by  different  preceding  syl- 
biiity  of     :  y  '  J  *    y 

the  verb    lables  of  nuances  into : 

•  to  be.' 

To  be  By?. 

To  stay  at  or  in  Probyt'. 

To  get  rid  of  Sbyi'. 

To  do  one's  part  of  Ozbyt'. 
To  decrease 
To  fall  out  (of  the  ranks, 

of  a  list) 

To  arrive  Pnbyt'. 

To  forget  Zabyt'. 

The  example,  by  the  way,  is^the  case  when  a 
whole  English  expression  is  necessary  to  convey 
the  meaning  of  the  two-syllable  word  for  each 
conception.  But  this  is  not  often  the  case.  We 
could  not  write  stories  of  one-syllable  words  like 
those  written  for  little  children  in  English. 

The  last  transformation  of  the  verb  tr>  be  is  very 
quaint:  the  syllable  of  nuance  za  which  does  it, 
means,  originally,  behind,  or  beyond.  Therefore, 
to  forget  really  means  in  Kussian  '  to  be  beyond 
being.'  ...  A  certain  termination  turns  it  into 
forgetfulness  (zabyvchivosf),  and  another  into 
unconsciousness  (zabytye).  This  is  rather  fine,  I 
think.  Corresponding  with  this,  the  Russian  for 
'  faint '  (obmorok)  carries  the  ancient  idea  of  being 
made  a  fool  by  means  of  witchcraft. 

Some   unique   points  about  the  verb  to  be  in 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        35 

Russian  are  worth  mentioning.  For  one  thing  it 
is  never,  never  used  in  the  ordinary  way — i.e.,  in 
the  present  tense — as  it  is  in  all  other  European 
languages.  We  never  say, '  I  am  ill,'  '  we  are  here/ 
'you  are  kind,' '  the  children  are  in  the  house,'  'they 
are  in  the  garden,'  'he  is  in  town,'  etc.  The  verb 
is  omitted  entirely. 

'  How  do  you  say,  then,  "  I  am  "  ?  '  the  English 
people  ask  me. 

But  we  don't  find  any  need  to  say  '  I  am  ' !  Not 
just  by  itself.  When  we  want  to  say,  '  I  am 
hungry,' '  I  am  glad,'  '  I  am  here,'  '  I  am  at  home,' 
etc.,  we  simply  say,  '  I  hungry,'  '  I  glad,'  '  I  here,' 
'  I  at  home  ' ;  the  special  short  termination  of  the 
adjective  expresses  in  itself  a  state  of  the  object, 
and  stands  as  a  predicate,  whilst  a  long  termination 
expresses  only  a  quality.  It  is  only  when  a  special 
emphasis  is  needed  that '  is  '  is  used — but  only  '  is  ' 
in  the  third  person  singular — never  in  any  of  the 
others:  'There  is  money  in  my  purse,'  'there  is 
time  to  do  it,'  '  there  is  a  chance  of  winning  the 
war, '  etc.  It  is  also  used  in  questions :  '  Is  there  time 
to  do  it  ?'  '  Is  there  a  chance  of  winning  the  war  V 
But  even  here  this  third  person  singular  (is=yest') 
is  applied  to  convey  exclusively  the  idea  of  posses- 
sion :  I  have  time=w  men' a  yest'  mem' a.  This  is 
done  because  the  verb  '  to  have  '  is  hardly  ever 
used  either,  as  the  idea  of  something  or  other  being 
there  replaces  in  Russian  the  idea  of  possession. 


36        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

We  don't  use  the  verbs  to  have  or  to  be  as 
auxiliary  verbs,  either,  because  we  need  no  auxili- 
aries, having  no  complex  tenses  (except  one,  for 
the  Imperfective  future). 

Thus  the  verb  byt'  (to  be)  is  altogether  in  a  very 
unique  position ;  it  is  not  at  all  needed  in  the  ordin- 
ary way;  but  its  importance  comes  in  where  it  is 
non-existent  in  other  languages:  namely,  it  is  rich 
in  suggestion,  and  certain  definitions  are  derived 
from  it  which  are  exclusively  Kussian.  For  in- 
stance, there  is  the  verbal  noun  byloye  which  stands 
for  '  things  which  really  happened  long  ago.' 
There  is  a  touch  of  poetry  in  it,  of  thoughtful 
reminiscences.  Or  here  is  another  definition  (a 
pure  noun)  byl\  which  is  used  in  direct  opposition 
to  fiction.  To  some  one's  query,  ( Is  this  a  fib  ?' 
you  answer,  '  No  !  it  is  byl'  \'=N9&t,  byl' !  It  is  a 
thing  which  really  has  been,  has  taken  place. 

The  future  tense  in  the  Old  Slavonic  of  this  verb 
is  bud'e ;  well,  quaintly  enough,  added  to  the 
beginning  of  a  phrase  it  means  '  in  case  if  ' ;  whilst 
the  past  tense,  bylo,  added  to  the  end  of  the  same 
phrase,  means  '  was  about  to.' 

Or  here  is  still  another  noun  from  the  same  verb : 
the  byt.  (The  only  difference  in  the  spelling  of 
this  word,  from  the  same  three  letters  representing 
the  infinitive,  consists  in  the  letter  t  being  hard 
instead  of  soft.)  We  use  this  noun  to  define,  en 
masse,  the  manners  of  life,  the  code  of  existence 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         37 

of  any  class  of  people.  We  say — the  byt  of  pro- 
vincial actors,  the  byt  of  courtiers,  the  byt  of  a 
farmer,  of  a  peasant,  of  students,  of  the  soldiers 
in  the  trenches — the  general  routine  of  their  life, 
as  it  were.  This  definition  leads,  in  its  turn,  to 
the  adjective  bytovoy,  which  is  applied  to  char- 
acter roles,  to  character  sketches,  to  national 
features.  Again,  the  future  is  called,  in  Russian, 
budushcheye,  an  adjective  participle  of  the  verb  to 
be.  Thus  the  latter  is  interwoven  in  the  Russian 
speech  closely  enough,  but  in  quite  a  different  way  to 
the  purely  grammatical  and  even  the  auxiliary  one 
in  which  it  runs  through  the  Western  languages. 

Or  here  are  a  few  columns  of  words  built  round 
the  same  root,  as  it  were,  through  the  addition  of 
various    terminations    and    different    syllables    c 
nuances.     They  make  some  remarkable  series  of mations  01 
conceptions,    all    of  them   threaded   together   quite 
logically  : 

Spirit,  breath  Duh.1     (Root:  duh  or  doh.) 

Ghosts  Duhi. 

Perfumes  Duhi. 

Air  Vozduh. 

Closeness  (of  air)  Duhota. 

Soul  Dusha. 

Waft  Dunoveriiye. 

Rest  Otdyh. 

To  rest  Otdyhat'. 

Fragrance  Dushistost'. 

Unanimity  Yedinodushiye. 

1  The  substitute  in  this  root  of  an  o  or  a  y  for  the  u  in 
some  of  the  words  makes  no  difference,  being  commanded  by 
sound  only. 


38        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Generosity  Velikodiishiye. 

Simplicity  of  mind  Prostodushiye. 

Good  nature  Dobrodushiye. 

Clergy  Duhovenstvo. 

Sigh  Vzdoh. 

Darling  Dushechka. 

Last  will  Duhovnaya. 

Oven  Duhovaya. 

Ventilator  Otdushina. 

There  is  a  verb  belonging  to  this  set  of  deriva- 
tions which  is  applied  to  the  dying  of  animals— 
izdyhdt'  or  izdohnut'.  It  conveys  the  idea  of  a  very 
solitary,  painful  death,  just  'letting  out  breath/ 
and  is  applied  to  human  death  only  in  the  way  of 
a  curse.  (There  is  yet  another  definition  for  the 
animals'  dying,  but  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  our 
present  case.)  The  translators  never  know  what 
to  do  with  this  izdohnut'.  Sometimes  they  put 
e  choking  '  for  it,  which  is  not  very  far  from  it 
grammatically,  but  gives  none  of  its  rudeness.  In 
one  of  Gor'ki's  passages,  the  whole  power  of  the 
gloomy  situation  is  lost,  as  the  author  uses  two 
verbs  of  the  same  root.  ...  It  occurs  in  the 
bitter  reminiscences  of  a  Volga-burlak,  who  is 
telling  of  his  youth,  when  he  was  towing  heavily- 
laden,  huge  barges  up  the  current  of  the  river, 
month  in  and  month  out:  '  One  suddenly  tumbles 
down  with  one's  face  buried  in  the  sand.  .  .  .  Even 
this  comes  as  a  relief.  .  .  .  The  strength  has 
whizzed  out,  and  only  two  things  remain  possible 
at  all:  either  otdyhat  or  izdyhat.  .  .  .'  Glancing 
at  the  column  above,  my  reader  will  see  the  differ- 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        39 


ence  which  the  little  syllable  ot  makes  in  this  case, 
and  will  realize  the  bitterness  of  the  Russian  sen- 
tence which  means  that  the  only  alternative  to 
resting  would  be  dying  like  a  homeless  beast. 

Here  are  some  other  examples  of  what  I  would 
call  '  logical  twisting  ' : 


Truth 

Rule 

Right 

Correctness 

Administration 

Management 

Government 

Crossing  (of  a  river) 

Justice 

Inquiry 

Training 

Correction 

Direction 

Jurisprudence 

Orthodoxy 

To  lead 

To  wind  up 

Belt  (of  an  engine) 

Factory 

Code  (of  laws) 

Fishing-net 

Company  (of  a  battalion) 

Translation 

Cart 

Formation  (in  army) 

Mode  (in  music) 

Slimness 

Building 

Arrangement 

Mood 

Piano-tuner 


Pravda.     (Root:  prav.) 

Pravilo. 

Pravo. 

Pravil'nost'. 

Pravleniye. 

Upravleniye. 

Pravitel'stvo. 

Pereprava. 

Sprav'edrivost'. 

Spravka. 

Vypravka. 

Popravka. 

Napravleniye. 

Pravovedeniye. 

Pravoslaviye. 

Vodit'.     (Root:  vod.) 

Zavodit'. 

Privod. 

Zavod. 

Svod  (zakonov). 

Nevod. 

Vzvod. 

Perevod. 

Podv6da. 

Stroy.     (Root:  stroy.) 

Stroy. 

Stroynost'. 

Postroyka,  Stroyeniye. 

Ustroystvo. 

Nastroyeniye. 

Nastroyshchik. 


I  hope  it  is  also  clear  from  these  groups  of  words 
that  they  are  quite  different  from  casual  likeness, 


40        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

such  as  in  cab  and  cabbage,  or  pen  and  penguin, 
or  pot  and  potato,  etc.  In  English,  a  parallel 
to  the  logically-threaded  sets  of  Kussian  nouns 
would  be,  for  instance  : 

Pedal.  Point. 

Pedlar.  Or  Appointment. 

Expedition.  Disappointment. 

Some  interesting  examples  like  these  do  exist, 
but  not  so  many  and  not  so  rich  as  in  Kussian, 
because  the  syllables  of  nuances  in  English  are 
considerably  fewer  in  themselves,  and,  what  is 
more,  not  applicable  to  so  many  nouns  and 
verbs,1  while  the  eloquent  terminations  are  quite 
absent. 

Altogether,  we  could  not  do  without  a  choice  of 
terminations.  They  make  a  world  of  difference. 
We  like  a  word  to  obey  the  minutest  vibration  of 
our  thought.  This  flexibility  is  quite  different  to 
the  English  manner  of  stringing  different  nouns 
like  beads  on  a  string — as  in:  War  Office  Harvest 
Women;  or,  Lake  Asphalt  Pavement  Company; 
Red  Cross  Subscription  List,  etc.,  etc. 
The  power  For  instance,  different  terminations  added  to 

of  term- 
inations,   the  root  which  means  '  old  '  give  the  noun,  at  your 

desire,  any  of  the  following  meanings : 

1  For  instance,  in  the  second  of  the  groups  given  above  only 
three  of  the  English  definitions,  correctness,  correction,  and 
direction  (one  could  add  director),  are  derived  from  the  root 
rect,  the  equivalent  to  which  in  Russian — prav — goes  for  build- 
ing up  a  much  greater  variety  of  conceptions. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        41 

The  times  of  yore  Starina. 

Old  age  Starost'. 

Old  man  Starik. 

A  fine  old  man  Staretz. 

A  dear  old  man  Starichok. 
A  miserable,  shrivelled, 

haggard,  little  old  man  Starikashka. 
A  nasty,  disgusting,  little 

old  man  Starichishka. 

Rubbish  Stary6. 

Or,  similar  metamorphoses  happen  as  most 
ordinary  things  to  the  words  '  boy  '  and  '  girl/ 
which,  like  nearly  all  Eussian  nouns,  are  beauti- 
fully soft  wax  under  the  powerful  chisel  of  the 
language : 

Boy   (derivation   from    the 

adjective  '  small '  (maly)      Mal'chik. 
A  rough  boy  Mal'chishka. 

A  nice,  regular  boyish  boy       Mal'chngan. 

A  dear  little  boy  Mal'chonka,  Mal'chugashka, 

Mal'chuganchik,  Mal'chinka. 

A  little  girl  D'evochka. 

A  nice  little  girl  D'evchdnochka. 

A  young  girl  D'evushka. 

A  rude,  nasty  girl  D'evchonka. 

An  unmarried  lady  D'evitza. 

A  spinster,  a  virgin  D'eva. 

A  wench  D'evka. 

Or: 

Son  Syn. 

Young  son  Synok. 

Dear  little  son  Synochek. 

Nice  great  big  son  Synishche. 

Or: 

Daughter  Doch',  Dochka. 

Dear  young  daughter  Doch'en'ka,  Dochurka. 


42        THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

The  root  which  means  small  and  rests  with  all 
the  '  boys'  words  '  (mal)  changes  its  one  vowel 
(mol)  to  serve  the  formation  of  the  word  youth, 
and  of  other  conceptions  akin  to  it.  Molodost* 
means  youth.  Molod'etz  is  the  heartiest  homely 
word  of  praise  for  both  sexes,  at  all  times  and  on 
all  occasions.  It  is  distinctly  national,  and  used 
in  all  classes  of  the  population.  It  conveys  the 
idea  that  the  person  has  achieved,  as  it  were,  all 
that  youth  can  achieve.  It  is  often  translated  as 
'  brick,'  but  this  word  has  not  a  breath  of  the  heroic 
folk-lore  about  it  which  the  Russian  has. 

One  of  the  prettiest  sayings  imbued  with  the 
old  Russian  heroic  spirit,  both  in  sound  and  mean- 
ing, translated  literally  runs  thus :  '  The  past  must 
not  be  thrown  as  a  reproach  at  a  molodetz.'  This 
is  conveyed  in  Russian  by  the  four  words:  '  ByV 
molodtzu  ne  ukbr'  The  definition  of  byl'  has 
already  been  given  (page  36)  as  '  things  which 
happened  long  ago  '  ;  the  remaining  nouns  also 
belong  to  the  Old  Russian,  and  the  whole  phrase  is 
buoyantly  alive  with  intense  dislike  of  hurling 
reproach  at  a  young  fellow  for  the  wild  oats  of  his 
past,  now  that  he  is  really  a  molod'etz  ! 

There  is  one  more  popular  word  coming  from 
the  same  nucleus,  which  is  constantly  applied  in 
Russia:  it  is  molod'oj,  a  noun  used  only  in  the 
singular — a  general  definition  of  the  younger  genera- 
tion, but  never  applied  otherwise  than  in  a  nice 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         43 

sense.  Here  is  an  expression  from  a  recent  news- 
paper article  which  describes,  in  a  few  words,  the 
masses  of  the  younger  generation  '  just  behind  the 
lines ' :  'All  this  molod'oj,  with  lovable,  bright 
faces,  longing  to  breathe,  to  work  and  to  love.  .  .  .' 
#  #  #  #  # 

A  new  word  has  now  entered  into  the  vistas  of  A  new 
the  Russian  language.  Politically  and  historic-  the  Qer- 
ally,  the  Germans  are  called  in  Russian  Germantzy. 
Yet  there  has  always  existed  another  name  for 
them  which  has  absolutely  acquired  '  all  social 
rights,'  and  has  been  very  widely  used  even  in 
official  nomenclature:  this  name  is  N'emtzy  (in 
plural).  Absolutely  independent  of  any  ethno- 
logical or  philological  sources,  this  word  must  have 
come  solely  from  its  own  root,  which  means  dumb, 
and  nothing  else  but  dumb — n'emoy.  In  the  olden 
days  the  Germans  must  have  been  thus  christened 
by  a  simple  Slavonic  population  to  whom  they 
were  just  as  good  as  dumb.  (There  exists  an 
idea,  though,  that  the  name  of  the  river  N'eman 
has  helped  to  foster  it.)  This  theory  is  backed  up 
by  another,  which  states  that  the  definition  of  the 
Germans  as  of  '  dumb  '  people  came  as  a  natural 
contrast  to  the  definition  Slavs  =  Slav' an' e,  the 
root  of  the  latter  being  derived  from  slovo=woid. 

But  now,  when  a  mass  of  Germans  have  risen  as 
an  obstinate  power  of  greater  importance  than 
ever  before,  the  instinctive  wit  of  the  soldat'ik 


44         THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

(soldier)  has  promptly  accommodated  itself  to 
trie  demands  of  the  moment:  the  official  word  for 
a  German,  Germartetz,  is  taken,  its  last  syllable  is 
altered  in  a  way  never  before  known,  and  a  new 
definition  is  ready  !  Its  nuance  is  absolutely  dis- 
tinct, and  makes  everyone  smile  who  knows  the 
riches  of  the  language:  the  name  is  germanchuk. 
As  can  be  easily  seen,  the  biggest  part  of  it  fully 
acknowledges  the  German  birthright,  so  to  speak. 
But  that  ending  chuk — well !  I  wish  it  were  pos- 
sible to  interpret  the  seeming  elegance  of  the  word, 
the  humour  of  its  condescension  ! 

But  there  existed,  even  before  now,  a  special 
twist  to  the  word  n'emetz,  which  distinctly  con- 
veyed an  attitude  of  neglect:  it  sounds  n'emchura. 
It  is  a  word  that  needs  pulling  up  one's  upper  lip 
in  order  to  pronounce  it  in  its  intended  tone:  it 
alludes  to  '  those  Germans  !'  whose  greatest  power 
does  not  surpass  making  sausages.  ...  It  is  very 
likely,  therefore,  that  this  shape  of  the  word  is  not 
used  any  more  now,  unless  it  has  acquired  a  nuance 
of  hatred. 
A  new  The  word  soldat'ik  itself  was  not  used  at  the  time 

reading  of 

an  old       when  regiments  were  ordered  to  shoot  at  revolu- 

word. 

tionary  crowds,  and  when  soldiers  were,  therefore, 
regarded  with  bitter  reproach  and  painful  astonish- 
ment. No  !  The  creative  power  of  the  language 
gives  an  absolutely  different  aspect  to  the  soldier 
as  a  man,  as  compared  to  the  soldier  as  a  weapon 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         45 

in  the  hands  of  a  reactionary  government,  simply 
through  applying  to  him  now  this  slightly  altered 
name,  which  has  lost  all  its  Western  flavour, 
although  coming  from  '  soldat.'  The  quiet  hero, 
the  soldat'ik,  now  no  more  made  unnaturally 
brutal,  has  his  name  on  everyone's  lips  and 
in  everyone's  heart  throughout  the  vast  land 
while  he  is  fighting  the  n'emetz,  who,  according 
to  a  mockingly-respectful  saying,  has  invented  the 

monkey  ! 

***** 

It  may  be  of  interest,  perhaps,  to  say  a  few  words  T.h®  ^s 
about  the  manner  in  which  the  Eussians  address  th<>d  of 

address. 

each  other.  Many  times  I  have  heard  English 
people  say  that  it  seems  as  if  we  had  ever  so 
many  names,  and  that  one  could  not  make  out 
in  the  translations  who  was  who,  for  each  person 
was  addressed  in  at  least  three  different  ways. 
The  explanation  can  be  made  quite  easy  by  a 
parallel.  Suppose  English  people  had,  like  our- 
selves, only  one  name  given  to  them  in  baptism; 
and  added  to  it  the  father's  name — which  in 
former  times  was  of  the  nature  of  a  genitive — and 
placed  after  that  the  surname,  the  result  would 
be,  for  an  English  brother  and  sister:  Kichard 
Edwardovich  Hodgkin  and  Dorothy  Edwardovna 
Hodgkina.  Well,  they  would  still  retain  their 
personalities  if  they  were  called  Dick  and  Dora  by 
those  who  addressed  them  with  a  '  thou,'  or  Richard 


46        THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Edwardovich  and  Dorothy  Edwardovna  in  the 
customary  social  manner  of  all  classes,  or  simply 
Hodgkin  or  Hodgkina  in  the  third  person.  In  the 
same  way,  the  Kussian  APosha,  or  Alexey  Feo- 
dorovich,  or  Karamazov,  all  stand  for  the  same 
person  in  Dostoyevski's  great  novel.  And  so  it 
is  always.  If  people  have  titles  you  call  them: 
Prince  Nikolay  Vasilyevich,  or  Count  Pavel  Petro- 
vich,  or  Princess  Ol'ga  Alexeyevna,  or  whatever 
they  are.  Old  servants,  without  waiting  for  any 
permission,  often  address  their  masters  as:  Barin 
(master)  Vladimir  Sergeyevich,  or  bat'ushka  (father) 
Sergey  Vladlmirovich,  or  baryn'a  (mistress)  Ol'ga 
Ivanovna,  or  matushka  (mother)  Vera  Vasilyevna, 
or  whatever  their  case  may  be. 

On  attaining,  with  the  growth  of  love  or  friend- 
ship, the  intimate  state  of  addressing  each  other 
with  a  '  thou  '  in  the  place  of  '  you,'  we  drop  the 
full  Christian  name  and  father's  name,  and  call 
people  by  their  shortened  names,  which,  it  is  true, 
have  no  end  of  varieties.  The  richness  in  the 
numerous  shades  of  meaning  which  the  choice  of 
terminations  adds  to  the  language  is  brilliantly 
illustrated  by  these  various  shortened  names. 
You  only  have  to  select  this  or  that  ending  from 
all  those  which  a  certain  shortened  name  possesses, 
and  your  feelings,  your  attitude  at  the  given 
moment  towards  the  addressed  person  is  sun-clear  ! 
Thus,  if  you  usually  call  a  boy  (whose  Christian 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        47 

name  in  full  is  Dmitri)  Mit'usha,  Mit'ushka,  Mlt'ik, 
Mit'en'ka,  Mit'unchik,  Mit'un'a  (or  something  else 
in  that  line,  all  of  it  conveying  much  love  and 
'  caressiveness '  through  the  mere  forms  of  the 
endings,  while  simply  Mit'a  is  indifferent) — and 
then  he  suddenly  hears  you  calling  him  Mit'ka, 
he  knows  that  something  is  wrong  !  Mit'ka,  as 
well  as  Kol'ka,  Van'ka,  Sashka,  etc.  (instead  of 
the  corresponding  affectionate  forms  Kol'usha, 
Vanichka,  Sashurka,  etc.),  carry  in  themselves 
your  vexation,  even  anger,  without  any  further 
explanation.  Only  one  certain  very  Russian  in- 
tonation of  the  voice  gives  them  a  humorously- 
tolerant  aspect :  between  country  boys  this  aspect  is 
very  popular,  and  the  touch  of  rudeness  disappears 
from  those  brisk  endings;  but,  when  given  to  girls' 
names  (Natashka,  Mashka,  Matr'oshka),  they  in- 
variably convey  disrespect.  The  peasants'  various 
forms  of  addressing  altogether  present  a  feast  of 
colours  ! 

But  when  we  are  first  introduced  to  each  other, 
and  commence  to  talk,  we  immediately  ask  each 
other,  '  What  is  your  name  ?'  and,  on  learning 
the  Christian  name  and  father's  name,  we  proceed 
to  address  each  other  by  them.  It  takes  away  the 
formality  of  Mister  and  Madame  So-and-So  which  we 
dislike  (gospod'in,  gospojd),  and  which  we  use  only 
in  business  or  at  formal  introductions  (very  often 
employing  for  it  the  French  '  monsieur '  and 


48        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

'  madame  ').  The  essentially  Kussian  manner  is  uni- 
versally employed  as  the  most  sociable  one;  there- 
fore the  name  is  often  given  in  full  at  the  first  intro- 
duction, e.g.,  Nikolay  Petrovich  Kolosov,  or  Elena 
Nikolay  evna  Kolosova.  A  homely,  respectful  way 
of  addressing  each  other  amongst  the  peasants  is  to 
use  the  father's  name  only:  Petrovich,  or  Stepa- 
novna,  or  Alexeich,  or  whatever  the  case  may  be. 

Peter  the  Great  used  to  call  his  statesmen  in 
this  super-homely  way ;  but  all  the  Tsars'  rescripts, 
whether  bringing  to  the  man  favour  or  disgrace, 
always  begin  with  an  address  in  the  universal 
way:  '  Much  esteemed  Nikolay  Ivanovich,'  or 
6  Ivan  Nikolay evich,'  or  whatever  the  man's  name 
may  be. 

***** 

We  are  quite  unable  to  appreciate  the  English 
expressions  of  intimacy :  (  Lucky  dog !  You  lucky 
devil!  Dear  old  duck!'  We  can  hardly  discern 
any  sign  of  friendliness  in  them.  Not  because 
they  are  slang :  some  English  slang  is  magnificently 
expressive,  and  we  regard  it  with  amused  admira- 
tion; but  our  sense  of  humour  fails  us  here,  and 
we  should  look  upon  these  forms  of  address  as  very 
impolite — in  fact,  quite  offensive  ! 

Our  favourite  birds,  whose  names  make  very 
poetic  Old  Eussian  terms  of  admiration  and  friend- 
liness, are  less  placid  and  useful  than  a  duck.  They 
are  the  *  steel- winged  eagle,'  '  falcon-bright '  and 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        49 

pigeon.  The  last  has  entirely  lost  its  connection 
with  the  idea  of  a  pigeon,  but  it  still  remains  the 
most  popular  and  national  term  of  sociability  in 
Kussia.  (Pigeon  is  golub';  and  this  favourite 
term  is  golubchik.)  I  am  purposely  calling  it  a  term  An  ordin- 
of  sociability  because  that  is  where  its  main  char-  sociability, 
acter  lies.  It  is  not  by  a  long  way  a  term  of  en- 
dearment used  exclusively  by  lovers.  It  comes 
into  any  lively  conversation,  and  is  used  by,  and 
for,  man  or  woman,  prince  or  beggar;  what  is 
more,  it  enters  our  everyday  speech  not  only  as  a 
kindly  form  of  address,  but  also  as  a  humorous  one 
or  one  of  sympathetic  condescension.  It  is  seldom 
translated  correctly,  simply  because  it  has  so  many 
shades,  and  because  it  needs  all  those  numerous 
intonations  with  which  the  Eussian  speech  is  per- 
meated. Sweetheart  or  pigeon,  which  are  mostly 
used  in  translations  as  its  equivalent  in  English, 
are  both  of  them  far  too  sentimental. 

The  gravest  statesman,  discussing  and  arguing 
over  most  serious  matters,  will  now  and  again  put 
in  the  '  golubchik,'  unless  the  discussion  is  very 
formal.  Drivers  will  encouragingly  call  out,  *  Hey, 
vy  (you)  golubchiki!'  to  their  horses,  when  starting 
them  on  a  quick,  long  run.  A  nice,  simple  old 
woman  will  address  every  gentleman  in  a  respect- 
fully-familiar way  as '  golubchik  barin ' — practically 
equivalent  to  '  darling  sir  ' — even  if  he  has  merely 
stopped  her  to  inquire  his  way.  A  devoted  old 

4 


50         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

servant,  as  a  matter  of  course,  calls  her  master  or 
mistress  golubchik-barin  or  golubushka-baryn'a. 
A  fair-minded  official,  when  hurriedly  dismissing  a 
petitioner  whose  request  he  could  not  grant,  would 
say:  '  Well,  golubchik,  what  is  to  be  done  ?  Such 
is  the  law  !' 

It  is  also  very  often  used  in  a  friendly  reproof : 
1  But,  golubchik !' 

What  is  more,  it  is  used  without  hesitation  even 
in  unusual  circumstances:  when  Dmitri  Karama- 
zov  is  being  cross-examined,  the  old  colonel  of  the 
police,  who  does  not  believe  that  he  has  killed  his 
father,  addresses  him  with  the  golubchik  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  official  inquiry. 

It  is  an  essentially  Eussian  word. 

Misunder-  The  way  of  addressing  people  as  father,  brother, 
terms  of  and  even  mother,  is  another  very  Kussian  feature. 
It  is  high  time  to  explain  that  the  famous  '  Little 
father  '  does  not  mean  '  little  '  father  at  all !  The 
Old  Kussian  word  for  father,  bdt'ushka,  does  not 
suggest  an  atom  cf  the  tone  in  which  '  little  father,' 
or  the  German  Vaterchen,  is  pronounced.  This  way  of 
translating  it  is  sickly- sentimental !  No,  bat'ushka 
is  used  either  in  a  grave,  deferential  way — and  that 
is  how  it  came  first  to  be  applied  in  the  olden  days 
to  the  Princes  and  later  to  the  Tsars,  and  is  still 
the  habitual  form  of  addressing  the  priests;  or  else 
it  is  used  in  a  very  argumentative  tone,  essentially 
Russian,  called  up  in  quick  discussion,  which  one 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         51 

never  hears  in  English  society,  and  therefore  is 
hardly  explicable :  it  carries  some  familiarity,  some 
respect,  some  rebuke,  some  humour,  some  surprise 
—very  often  all  of  them  at  the  same  time  ! 

For  instance,  the  simple-minded  small  land- 
owner Korobochka  ('  little  box  ')  in  Gogol's  Dead 
fcouls,  admitting  the  hero  into  her  cottage  on  a 
wretched,  stormy  night,  and  seeing  him  smothered 
with  mud — the  result  of  his  having  been  just  over- 
turned with  his  vehicle  in  a  ploughed  field — asks 
him,  a  perfect  stranger  to  her:  '  But  where  didst 
thou  be-filth  thyself  like  a  boar,  bat'ushka  ?' 

When  the  investigation  lawyer  most  artfully 
sounds  Raskol'nikov  (Crime  and  Punishment) 
throughout  his  Machiavellian  diatribe,  he  con- 
stantly addresses  him  as  bat'ushka,  or  golubchik, 
although  he  is  sure  of  his  listener's  guilt  from  the 
commencement. 

'  Mother '  is  used  in  a  similar  manner,  with  a 
similar  twist  to  the  word — matushka  ;  and,  what  is 
very  quaint  indeed,  men  sometimes  use  it  in  address- 
ing each  other,  when  the  tone  of  the  argument 
gets  somewhat  hot :  '  Well,  matushka,  that's  a  bit 
of  that!' — which  stands  for,  'Well,  sir,  that's  a 
bit  far-fetched  !' 

But  here  I  should  add  that  it  would  be  altogether 
impossible  to  converse  in  Russian,  using  so  few 
forms  of  address  as  are  used  by  the  English.  On 
coming  to  live  here,  we  sometimes,  feel  quite  awk- 


52         THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

ward  in  being  spoken  to  as  if  we  were  nonentities, 
without  any  names  or  personalities.  With  us,  the 
usual  form  of  address  is  the  one  just  discussed 
above  (see  p.  43),  or  a  shortened  Christian  name 
in  one  of  its  numerous  shapes,  or  golubchik,  or 
brother,  or  father,  in  one  of  their  previous  applica- 
tions— something  or  other  is  always  there,  be- 
sprinkling the  speech,  so  that  you  feel  sure  that  it 
is  you  whom  the  speaker  keeps  in  his  mind  and  not 
the  general  public. 

'  Ladies  and  gentlemen  '  is  used  on  occasions 
similar  to  those  in  English;  only  literally  it  runs 
'  gracious  sovereigns  and  gracious  sovereignesses  '- 
which  sounds  still  more  quaint  in  English  than  it 
does  in  Eussian.  It  is  that  same  word,  sovereign 
—Gosudar' — which  is  a  homely-loyal  manner  of 
speaking  of  and  to  the  Tsars,  a  very  ancient  word, 
too,  coming  from  the  times  when  a  prince  would 
be  regarded  as  the  chief  of  his  land,  just  as  every 
man  was  the  chief  of  his  household.  Therefore, 
the  old  expression  Gosudar'-bat'ushka  (sovereign- 
father)  would  be  applied  in  the  olden  days  equally 
to  a  monarch  as  to  a  master  of  any  house,  convey- 
ing an  equal  amount  of  respect  and  of  homeliness. 
Nowadays,  of  course,  it  has  lost  its  popularity 
with  the  Tsars  as  well  as  with  ordinary  mortals, 
the  equipoise  having  become  less  balanced  in  both 
cases:  the  Tsars  being  now  less  accessible  than 
the  ancient  princes,  and  the  modern  householder 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         53 

less  lord  of  all  he  surveys  than  his  ancient  proto- 
type. 

But  '  gracious  sovereigns  '  (mllostivyie  gosudari 
i  mllostivyia  gosudaryni)  still  is  the  proper 
customary  official  way  of  addressing  a  society 
of  men  and  women,  though  only  at  the  com- 
mencement of  a  meeting.  When  the  meeting  is 
in  full  swing,  or  unofficial,  the  speaker  addresses 

*  able  Rus- 

it  with  '  q  svoda  /'     This  is  a  word  which  formerly  sian  form 

of  address. 

was  only  a  plural  form  of  '  master,'  but  now  in- 
cludes anyone  in  any  company.  It  means '  gentry,' 
as  used  by  domestic  servants  about  their  masters; 
but  it  is  also  the  most  natural  and  sociable  manner 
of  addressing  a  company  of  one's  equals,  without 
which  we  could  not  live  in  Kussia  one  single  day 
(unless  one  was  a  hermit).  With  us  the  conversa- 
tion is  usually  a  general  one,  shared  by  most 
persons  in  the  room,  and  one  constantly  addresses 
a  whole  group  of  people.  The  only  time  when 
one  must  not  address  them  as  '  gospoda  '  is  when 
all  around  you  are  officially  of  a  much  higher  rank 
than  yourself,  which  is  rather  a  contrast  to  the 
handling  of  the  same  word  by  servants.  But  if 
you  regard  your  audience  as  ordinary  mortals  like 
yourself,  you  cannot  avoid  this  form  of  address. 
Thus,  even  Dmitri  Karamazov,  facing  the  authori- 
ties who  came  to  arrest  him  at  his  orgy  (suspecting 
him  of  the  murder  of  his  father),  adds  to  every  few 
words  of  his :  '  Come,  gospoda,  it  is  a  terrible  accu- 


54        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

sation.  .  .  .  What  a  pity,  gospoda  !' — because  lie 
speaks  sincerely,  and  the  usual  way  of  address- 
ing these  people  as  equals  comes  naturally  to 
him. 

'  Gospoda  '  is  not  exactly  '  gentlemen,'  because 
students  of  both  sexes,  school  children,  ladies, 
girls,  are  all  addressed  as  gospoda  in  speaking. 
Al'osha  Karamazov  uses  it  even  when  speaking  to 
small  school  boys.  A  girl  stretcher-bearer  carry- 
ing in  on  her  shoulders  still  another  wounded 
soldier  into  an  already  over-filled  dressing-station, 
will  call  out  to  the  doctors:  'Gospoda,  gospoda, 
one  more;  we  must  make  room  for  him  !' 

But  the  wounded  men  would  feel  more  at  home 
with  her  if  she  addressed  them  as  '  bratzy.9  This 
word  is  translated  usually  in  that  same  sentimental 
manner  as  ( little  brothers.'  I  cannot  help  putting 
it  in  this  way,  because  these  English  expressions 
(little  father,  little  brothers,  little  mother) — sup- 
posed to  be  equivalent  to  the  Kussian  expressions 
—really  make  us  turn  up  our  noses  !  There  is  no 
littleness  whatever  about  bat'ushka,  bratzy,  or 
matushka.  Big  boys  do  not  address  their  little 
brothers  as  bratzy  in  a  patronizing  way;  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  the  small,  business-like  boys,  who 
will  address  older  fellows  as  bratzy,  when  talking 
in  the  grave  way  the  Kussian  mujlk  has  about  him 
Another  from  the  age  of  six  or  seven.  By  the  way,  one  of 
most  striking  contrasts  between  the  English 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         55 

and  the  Russian  peasant  children  is  this:  an  English 
boy  seems  to  me  to  try  and  be  as  funny  and  rowdy 
as  possible  from  the  age  of  six  up  to  sixteen, 
whereas  his  little  Russian  confrere  of  seven  or 
eight  presents  quite  a  different  picture:  he  puts 
on  his  grandfather's  top-boots  and  old,  huge 
fur  gloves,  his  own  sheepskin  tulupchik,  and  walks 
for  days  on  end  at  the  side  of  a  sledge-load  of  wood, 
leading  the  horse  between  the  house  and  the  forest 
—his  sole  ambition  being  to  express  all  the  dignity 
of  labour  in  his  mien  and  gait. 

Bratzy,  applied  by  the  nurses  and  officers 
talking  to  their  men,  conveys  sociable  apprecia- 
tion. All  peasants  and  workmen  address  their 
crowds  as  bratzy  (which  is  nice  and  simple)  and 
not  bratya  (which  is  biblical  and  puritan — unless 
it  stands  for  real  brother).  There  is  warmth, 
caress,  and  respectful  comradeship  in  the  expres- 
sion bratzy.  Mrs.  Constance  Garnett  translates 
bratzy  as  boys,  fellows,  or  gentlemen.  This  is 
better  than  '  little '  brothers.  It  should  be  made 
clear  that  there  is  no  vestige  of  belittling  in  these 
Russian  nouns  of  affinity,  despite  their  seemingly 
diminutive  terminations. 

The  'little  father,'  'little  mother,'  and  'little 
brothers  '  ought  to  be  banished  from  the  English 
translations  by  fire  and  sword  !  They  are  un- 
bearably sentimental.  There  are  no  parallel 
forms  in  English  to  the  Russian  shades  of  these 


56  THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

nouns,  so  let  them,  at  least,  remain  simply  '  father  ' 
and  '  brothers.' 

As  it  is,  all  the  varieties  of  the  words  son, 
daughter,  and  even  children,  remain  necessarily 
untranslatable.  You  cannot  say  anything  differ- 
ent in  English  except  adding  to  them  that  old, 
monotonous  epithet  '  little,5  while  in  Eussian 
there  is  a  variety  of  terminations  meaning  neither 
this  adjective  nor  '  brat '  nor  '  kid.'  For  instance, 
symshche  means  a  big,  nice  syn  (son),  with  a  touch 
of  humour  in  it;  while  synlshka  is  exclusively 
Russian  caressive.  There  is  a  selection  of  varieties  for 
words  for  <children':  fftj  (the  plain,  original  form  of  the 
word),  d'etki,  d'etishki,  d'etochki,  and  d'etvora,  the 
last  being  a  very  appreciative  collective  definition, 
implying  the  idea  of  the  little  folks  with  all  their 
own  interests  included  as  it  were — a  parallel  to 
molod'oj  (see  p.  42). 

Not  that  we  object  to  '  kids  '  or  '  brats.'  The 
Eussian  slang  applied  to  children  is  equally  unique, 
only  we  use  it  with  more  condescending  humour, 
I  think.  We  call  them  '  bubbles,'  or  by  a  special 
humorously-caressive  word,  '  karapuz ',  which 
means  a  round,  solid,  comically-grave  little  figure. 
'  Bubble  ' — puzi/r' — is  also  very  pretty,  conveying 
much  love,  and  should  not  be  translated  as  e  kid.'  I 
think  English  readers  would  appreciate  the  parallel 
of  a  nice,  full-cheeked  fatty  to  a  bright  soap  bubble. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIIi  LANGUAGE         57 

It  would  be  only  fair  to  say  a  few  words  about* rich- 
the  Russian  expression  n'ichevo,  which  has  acquired 
much  misleading   fame  abroad.      This    is    about 
the  only  Russian  word  which  is  widely  known— 
and  it  is  misunderstood.     It  is  always  quoted  with 
a  smile,  as  it  means  '  never  mind,  this  is  nothing  !' 
and  is  supposed  to  be  the  main  characteristic  of  a 
nonchalant  people.     But  one   should  thoroughly 
know  the  Russians  to  estimate  this  expression  of 
theirs  fairly.     True,  with  us  it  is  '  n'ichevo  '  when 
people  walk  into  the  room  without  knocking;  or 
come  without  invitation  at  any  time  for  the  simple 
reason  that  they  wish  to  see  you;  or  men  don't 
walk  on  the  outside  of  the  pavement  (which  they 
have  never   been   told   to   do),   or  get  up   from 
their    seats    and    pace    the  room  up  and   down, 
in  the  heat  of  a  discussion  during  the  course  of 
a  meal;  all  this  is  certainly  'n'ichevo,'  because 
these  points  are  but  trifles  to  a  Russian  mind, 
and    the   Westerner   may   smile   with  disgust    or 
condescension  at  the  thought  of  such  manners  ! 
It    is    certainly  '  n'ichevo  '   for    a    young  girl    of 
good  family  and  the  best  education  to  go  about 
with    one    or    many  male    friends   wherever   she 
wants   to  —  because   no    one   hurries    to   suspect 
immorality  hidden  by  social  interests,  nor  to  build 
up  a  scaffolding  of  inevitable  matrimony  around 
them.     It  is  a  universally  adopted  custom  result- 
ing from  a  sensible,  interesting,  natural,  and  useful 


58        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

equality  of  the  sexes.  With  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish this  is  rather  far  from  '  n'ichevo  !'  and  they 
smile,  unless  they  are  actually  shocked. 

But  one  should  be  far  from  smiling  at  a  Eussian 
man  who  says  seriously  and  whole-heartedly, 
'  n'ichevo  !'  as  he  marries  a  girl  with  a  tragic  past 
who  is  left  with  a  child.  Nor  is  it  improper  when  a 
young  lady  utters  a  sincere,  gentle,  encouraging 

n'ichevo  !'  whilst  doing  unpleasant  work  in  assist- 
ing a  shy  and  helpless  man  whom  she  sees,  perhaps, 
for  the  first  time  in  her  life.  Nor  is  a  '  n'ichevo  ' 
funny  when  uttered  with  a  smile  by  a  solddt'iJc, 
who  is  creeping  towards  the  dressing- station 
wounded  in  his  shoulder,  side,  and  leg. 

There  are  indeed  very  different  occasions  on 
which  the  Russians  will  say  '  n'ichevo.' 

True,  again,  a  Russian  will  fly  down  a  long, 
steep  hill  in  his  sledge,  cart,  or  brougham,  and  will 
say  '  n'ichevo  !'  if  the  vehicle  happens  to  go  into 
the  ditch  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill.  But  in  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  it  would  not  do  so, 
because  rushing  down  a  hill  is  a  universally  beloved 
thing,  to  which  generations  of  horses  have  been 
used  since  the  time  when  the  Russian  land 
first  '  began  to  be.'  And  if  a  driver  did  not  rise 
in  his  seat,  and  let  all  the  reins  loose,  and  shout 
words  of  love  and  encouragement  to  them,  at  the 
sight  of  a  steep  road  downwards,  the  horses  would 
think  that  something  had  gone  unmistakably  wrong. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        59 
There   is,    amongst   many   others,    one   certain  A  very 

J  Russian 

series  of  nouns,  which  have  all  of  them  grown  out  word  for 

affection. 

of  the  same  root.  However  quaint  it  may  look  at 
the  first  glance,  we  can  easily  find  that  they  are 
threaded  together  by  the  idea  lurking  in  that  root. 
The  latter  is  rod,  which  means  kin,  kind.  The 
other  nouns  are:  nature,  relationship,  people,  har- 
vest, birth,  homeland,  Christmas  (priroda,  rodstvo, 
narod,  urojay,  rojdeniye,  rodina,  rojdestvo). 
Amongst  the  numerous  adjectives  which,  in  their 
turn,  have  grown  out  of  these  nouns,  there  is  one 
which  I  cannot  omit.  It  is  impossible  to  speak  of 
the  Eussian  language  without  mentioning  the 
word  rodnoy.  Mr.  Eothay  Reynolds,  in  his  book, 
My  Russian  Year,  says  that  he  found  the  Russian 
language  one  to  make  love  in;  and  an  American, 
who  has  stayed  in  Russia  during  sixteen  months 
of  the  war,  wrote  the  other  day  that  the  Russians 
'  love  to  love.'  This  is  very  true — but,  please,  in- 
clude all  rays  of  love  !  All  her  numerous,  wonder- 
ful rays  !  And  then  you  will  understand,  perhaps, 
why  the  most  caressive  and  beautiful  of  all  Russian 
love-words  is  derived  from  that  root.  You  call 
rodnoy  your  beloved  one  (only  mind  the  gender !) ; 
you  call  rodndya  your  mother,  and  your  land 
(which  is  feminine);  you  apply  the  same  adjective 
to  your  really  beloved  friends ;  you  say  that  a  song 
is  rodndya  to  you,  and  then  it  means  that  it  brings 
home  to  you  everything  that  makes  your  heart 
beat  warmly;  whilst  to  a  South-Russian  '  a  pond, 


60        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

a  cherry-garden,  and  a  windmill/  on  the  face  of  the 
step'  make  a  rodnaya  picture.  A  poor  peasant 
woman,  with  large  tears  standing  in  her  eyes  as 
she  hands  a  pot  of  milk  to  the  wounded  in  a  passing 
train,  calls  them  rodnyie  under  her  breath,  for 
each  of  them  is  as  much  rodnoy  to  her  heart  as  the 
one  boy  who  is  righting  somewhere  far,  far  away. 

The  nearest  to  it  in  English  is  '  kindred,'  but  it 
is  not  used  in  the  same  homely  way  for  expressing 
the  warmth  of  the  purest  love  and  tenderness. 

***** 
The  order       I  must  point  out  yet  another  important  feature 

of  words. 

of  the  Russian  language.  In  English  it  IP  neces- 
sary to  keep  the  nouns  in  their  exact  places,  in 
order  not  to  confuse  the  object  with  the  subject. 
'  The  English  beat  the  Germans,'  is  one  thing, 
whilst  '  the  Germans  beat  the  English  '  would  be 
quite  another !  Now,  in  Russian  we  purposely 
group  the  words  in  various  orders  because  each 
order  usually  gives  a  different  shade  to  the  tone. 
We  are  free  to  avail  ourselves  of  this  richness  of 
choice  because  we  can  leave  the  primary  distinction 
between  object  and  subject  to  the  obvious  indi- 
cation of  the  inflections  (one  of  the  nominative, 
the  other  of  the  accusative  case).  Thus  the  most 
enthusiastic  phrase  to  be  repeated  one  day  all  over 
Russia,  I  hope,  may  be  '  Beat  the  Germans  the 
English  !'  using  the  past  tense  of  the  exclusively 
Russian  perfective  aspect  of  an  infinitive. 

In  English  this  sounds  rather  alarming.     Yet 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         61 

it  is  the  result  merely  of  the  lack  of  inflection  (in 
this  case  of  an  accusative  for  '  the  Germans  '), 
and  of  the  trespass  on  the  formal  arrangement  of 
words.  We  can  also  say  '  the  English  beat  the 
Germans,'  of  course,  but  this  sounds  only  formal. 
For  the  same  reason,  another  order  in  wording 
would  sound  in  English  absurd,  but  does  not  in 
Russian,  because  exact  terminations  in  declension 
make  all  the  difference:  '  The  Germans  the  English 
beat;  Wilhelm  the  Allies  exiled;  the  Americans 
the  truth  showed.'  This,  if  put  in  the  required 
cases  (nomin,  and  accus.)  would  mean  in  Russian 
a  very  intensively  expressed  state  of  things  for 
which  we  all  of  us  wish.  Again,  we  can  easily  say 
it  in  the  other  way : '  The  English  beat  the  Germans, 
the  Allies  exiled  Wilhelm,  and  the  Americans  were 
shown  the  truth.'  But  that  would  not  sound  nearly 
so  victorious.1 

The  optional  way  of  placing  the  verbs  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sentence  makes  a  great  difference 
to  the  graphic  power  of  a  phrase ;  it  raises  it  several 
degrees  higher.  Our  writers  do  it  constantly,  as 
we  do  it  in  ordinary  speech — as  a  matter  of  course, 
without  any  preconceived  idea  of  being  at  all 
flowery.  The  music  of  the  Russian  speech  is  as  free 
as  a  composer  when  he  arranges  his  little  black 

1  Here  are  the  two  varieties  of  the  phrase :  N'emtzev  Angli- 
chan'e  pobili ;  Vilhelma  soyuzn'iki  izgnal'i;  Am'erikantzam 
pravdu  pokazal'i.  Or  (the  same  meaning  but  far  less  vic- 
torious): Anglichan'e  pobil'i  N'emtzev;  soyuzn'iki  izgnal'i 
Vilhelma;  pokazal'i  pravdu  Am'erikantzam. 


62         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

words,  hooked  and  tailed,  in  this  or  that  special 
succession. 

Nothing  can  give  more  vivid  motion  to  a  descrip- 
tive paragraph  than  placing  the  verbs  at  the  be- 
ginning of  each  short  phrase.  Here  is  one  from  a 
story  by  the  young  writer,  Al'exey  Tolstoy,  giving 
a  picture  of  the  breaking-up  of  the  winter  in  the 
st'ep'  district.  I  must  mention  that  this  author 
takes  Old  Russian  roots  and  makes  new  words 
of  them  with  the  majestic  liberty  of  the  beating 
of  an  eagle's  wings : 

'  Stirred  the  winter  roads;  lay  dirty  crusts  of 
snow;  made  naked  themselves  the  hills  showing 
last  year's  thistles.  Bustle  the  sparrows,  coo  the 
honey- voiced  doves;  scent  the  walls  of  the  huts 
perspiring  with  golden  tar;  do  not  rush  the  officials 
tinkling  the  bells  of  their  sledges:  soon  will  the 
spring  floods  break  away  from  their  leash.' 

Here  is  another  nice  example  from  the  new 
pearl  in  Russian  literature,  Gor'ki's  Childhood : 

1  Square,  broad-chested,  he  would  come  in,  trim 
in  his  golden  x  silk  shirt,  velvet  trousers,  and  con- 
certina boots.2  Glittered  his  hair;  shone  his  gay, 

1  In  Russian  it  is  '  goldeny,'  like  silvery. 

2  Smart  top-boots  are  made  in  Russia,  with  a  number  of 
horizontal  crisp  pleats  meeting  each  other  under  even  angles 
right  around  and  up  the  upper  part  of  the  boot.     They  are 
known  as  sapogi  garmon'ikoy,  or  harmonica-boots  =  concertina- 
boots,  while  the  plain  top-boots  are  called  sapogi  butylkam'i, 
which  means  bottle-boots. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         63 

somewhat  squinting,  eyes  under  tlieir  thick  eye- 
brows ;  sparkled  his  teeth  under  the  black  stripe  of 
his  young  moustache;  glowed  his  silk  shirt,  softly 
reflecting  the  light  of  the  ever-burning  lampadka.' l 

It  seems  almost  incredible  to  a  Eussian  ear  that 
this  order  of  words  could  fail  to  draw  a  vivid 
picture  as  on  a  film,  even  in  its  English  garb,  but 
then,  perhaps,  it  does  need  the  additional  help 
which  a  Russian  reader  gets  from  his  knowledge 
of  the  rest  of  the  scene.  In  reading  Gor'ki's  lines, 
we  also  see  the  dim  interior  of  a  solid,  warm  log 
hut,  the  cosy  light  '  twinkling  warmly  '  before  the 
lampadki  lit  in  front  of  the  ikon-corner  where  they 
are  suspended  on  thin  chains,  their  flickering  light 
dancing  on  the  gilt  settings  of  the  ikons.  .  .  .  The 
huge  white-washed  bread-stove,  the  wooden  benches 
along  the  walls,  mostly  suggestive  of  a  night  rest 
for  any  casual  wanderers.  .  .  . 

Few  of  us  belonging  to   the  Intelligenzia  keep  A 

.  ,  C6nC6. 

ikons  in  the  rooms  of  our  flats  or  houses,  as  was 
still  usual  some  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago;  but  also 
very  few  of  us  have  not  known  the  enjoyable,  quiet 
moments  in  the  nursery  where  our  old  nurse  keeps 
her  own  set  of  ikons.  In  those  days  of  wonders, 
one  likes  to  watch  her  lighting  her  lampadka  on  a 

1  The  lamps  that  are  made  for  the  purpose  of  burning  before 
the  ikons  are  little  bowls  in  glass  or  china  in  a  metal  setting. 
They  are  called  lampadka  or  lampdda,  as  distinguished  from 
ordinary  Idmpa.  There  is  a  special  verb  applied  to  them, 
t'eplitsa,  which  means,  approximately,  '  twinkle  warmly.' 


64        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Saturday  night.  She  takes  out  of  a  small  box 
several  tiny  little  wicks  drawn  through  weeny 
little  coloured  paper  stars,  lets  them  float  on  the 
oil,  and  lights  one  of  them.  .  .  .  You  stand  on 
tiptoe  and  hold  your  face  so  close  to  it  that  you 
smell  the  sunflower  oil  and  it  leaves  its  impression 
in  your  nostrils  for  ever  afterwards.  .  .  .  You 
watch  the  little  paper  stars  float  slowly,  slowly, 
on  the  oil  till  they  stop.  These  simple  proceedings 
have  the  magic  power  of  toning  down  your  exu- 
berant energy,  and  you  gently  ask  your  friend,  the 
nurse,  to  present  you  with  a  gift  of  several  little 
wicks  from  her  box  of  treasure-trove  (price  three 
kopeks  =  three  farthings).  She  does  so,  and  you 
play  quietly,  placing  the  precious  weeny  stars  on 
your  blanket  in  front  of  your  nose — till  your  eyelids 
fall  as  a  screen  between  them  and  the  still  more 
wonderful  world  you  enter. 

*  *  *  *  * 

There  are  numberless  ordinary  cases  where  the 
verb  beginning  a  phrase  comes  as  a  natural  demand 
of  the  Russian  speech  while  it  would  sound  ridicu- 
lous in  English.  For  instance,  the  whole  meaning 
of  the  phrase  is  emphasized  in  the  following  ex- 
amples through  having  the  verbs  in  the  first  place : 

1  Stilled  everything.  Sleep  the  mountains.  Sleeps 
the  green  sky.  Died  the  air.  Am  dying  I.  Love 
I  this  willingness  of  yours,  prince  !  Frightened 
thou  me.  (To)  Arrest  you  (is)  too  early.' 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         65 

This  twist  gives  a  different  touch  to  the  phrases 
than  the  one  which  is  acquired  by  the  English 
'  there  '  placed  at  the  head  of  a  sentence,  and  could 
not  always  be  conveyed  through  the  latter.  You 
couldn't  add  '  there '  to  any  of  the  above  lines 
taken  at  random  from  Turgenev's  Poems  in 
Prcse  and  from  Dostoyevski.  Any  part  of  speech 
placed  first  in  a  Russian  sentence  draws  the  reader's 
attention  to  it. 

For  instance,  if  you  want  to  lay  stress  on  the 
word  '  money,'  where  you  would  have  to  say  in 
English,  '  it  is  money  that  is  wanted,'  we  simply 
exchange  the  places  of  the  two  words  which  make 
this  phrase,  instead  of  adding  any  more:  Nddo 
d'en'eg  means  simply  '  money  is  wanted '  (nado 
= wanted);  but  d'en'eg  'nado  means:  'It  is  money 
that  is  wanted — not  anything  else.'  If  you  go  with 
a  friend  to  a  shop  merely  to  accompany  her,  and 
the  assistant  asks  you  what  you  would  like,  you 
would  say:  Mn'c  n'ichevo  n'e  nado  (I  want  nothing), 
the  first  word  being  the  personal  pronoun,  thus 
indicating  that  you,  yourself,  want  nothing;  but 
if  the  assistant  bothers  you  and  begins  to 
show  you  goods  with  the  obiect  of  tempting 
you,  you  would  be  quite  justified  in  ejaculating: 
N'ichevo  mn'e  n'e  nado  ! — meaning :  I  don't  want 
anything — as  much  as  to  say :  Leave  me  alone ! 
Yet  it  is  only  the  special  succession  of  the  same  few 

words  that  makes  all  the  difference. 

5 


66         THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Dmitri  Karamazov,  writing  his  last  letter  to  the 
girl  whom  he  had  adored,  but  to  whom  he  became 
false  through  his  passion  for  another  woman, 
writes:  Nogi  tvoyi  tzeluyu  =  Feet  thine  (I)  kiss. 
These  three  words  arranged  the  other  way  round 
might  be  banal,  and  could  be  found  in  many  love 
letters.  But  placing  Nogi  (feet)  at  the  head  of 
the  sentence  conveys  the  idea  that  Dmitri  would 
not  dare  to  kiss  the  woman  on  her  lips,  but  mentally 
kisses  her  feet  only;  all  his  self-humiliation  is  re- 
flected in  the  order  of  this  wording  alone. 
***** 

There  are  some  other  reasons  which  make  a  per- 
fect translation  of  many  Russian  authors  an  impos- 
sible task.  There  is  no  wonder  that  Gogol's  genius 
is  very  little  known  and  understood  abroad  !  He  is 
almost  untranslatable;  his  essentially  Russian  speech, 
especially  in  his  passionate,  uplifting  enthusiasm 
blended  with  poetical  feeling,  is  a  feature  which 
cannot  be  conveyed  through  any  other  language. 
He  is  as  exclusively  Russian  in  these  as  Dosto- 
yevski  and  Nekrasov  are  Russian  in  suffering,  and 
Shchedrin  in  dissecting  the  evils  of  Russian  social 
life.  Turgenev  and  Tolstoy,  with  all  their  Russian 
mind,  were  nevertheless  generally  human,  super- 
national,  as  it  were:  the  first  one  chiefly  an  artist, 
the  second  a  thinker.  This  is  reflected  in  their 
speech  which  is  the  most  translatable  and  there- 
fore more  often  translated.  But  already  in  Dosto- 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         67 

yevski,  Chehov,  and  Gor'ki  there  are  those  gaps 
in  translations  which  cannot  be  filled,  or  which 
are  sometimes  filled  with  unrecognizable  material !  x 
whilst  at  least  one-half  of  the  poet  Nekrasov, 
the  satirist  Shchedrin,  and  the  colossal  suflerer- 
humorist  Gogol'  will  lose  in  translation  a  world 
of  their  national  beauty  and  character. 

In  the  midst  of  that  brilliant  bitterness  with 

the  natio*1- 

which  Gogol'  has  slated  Kussia  for  her  shortcomings  aiist. 
he  has  written  the  most  inspired  pages  that  love 
for  country  has  ever  called  forth.  He  has  suffered 
persecution  from  censorship,  misery,  and  deadly 
illness,  whilst  being  a  nationalist  in  his  genius,  a 
nationalist  more  honest  and  more  enthusiastic  than 
a  writer  has  ever  been. 

By  the  way,  it  was  the  prostor  that  has  made 
some  of  his  pages  like  living  creatures  that  breathe 
of  Russian  passion  for  immensity.  .  .  . 

Just  as  the  Russians  themselves  do  not  withhold 
their  enthusiasm  for  fear  of  ridicule,  so  does  their 
language  remain  fearless  and  spontaneous,  freely 
using  all  that  can  graphically  carry  depth  and  power  A  term  of 
of  feeling.     There  is  with  us  even  a  second,  a  more  mentor 
ancient  form  for  the  very  name  of  Russia,  which ' Russia/ 
we  use  when  we  feel  particularly  in  love  with  her  ! 

1  It  is  a  relief  to  see  whole  pages  omitted  in  the  English 
translation  of  G6r'ki's  Childhood.  If  '  translated,'  they  would 
unavoidably  be  a  painful  disappointment  to  every  Russian. 
It  is  sufficient  to  see  mistakes  here  and  there  in  the  English 
text. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

The  ordinary,  less  enthusiastic,  name  is  Rossiya  ; 
but  it  has  come  into  being  only  since  Peter  the 
Great,  who  invented  it  in  his  zeal  to  do  away  with 
all  the  past  of  his  country.  But  in  this  case  he 
failed  (as  in  some  others — more  sensible  ones  !). 
The  original  name,  Rus\  still  breathes  of  something 
beloved  and  beautiful,  more  genuine  and  more 
crystal-like  than  *  Rossiya  '  does. 

The  name  Rus'  consists  of  an  R,  a  Russian  u, 
and  a  soft  s — a  very,  very  soft  one.  '  Thou,  Rus' ' 
sounds  lovable !  .  .  .  Rus',  vastness,  troyka, 
speed,  prostor,  we  address  them  all  with  a  '  thou,' 
ty,  for  they  are  such  intimate  conceptions  that 
they  verge  on  personification  almost  like  the  old 
Olympians  were  to  the  Greek. 

I  feel  bound  to  commit  a  sacrilege  and  to  '  trans- 
late "  into  English  some  parts  of  those  paragraphs 
in  which  Gogol'  reflects  our  passionate  love  for 
prostor. 

Gbgor  on  '  Rus',  Rus',  I  can  see  thee  from  my  beautiful 
Far.1  ...  All  seems  poor  and  scattered  and 
bare  about  thee.  No  bold  marvels  of  nature 
startle  one's  eye.  ...  No  wealth  of  wild  roses, 
ivy-covered  rocks,  no  grapes,  no  silvery  moun- 
tains lifting  their  summits  to  the  skies.  All  is 
open  and  empty.  Thy  towns  are  like  small  dots 

1  This  was  written  in  Italy.  (We  have  a  beautiful  noun 
which  is  akin  to  the  adverb  far,  and  which  does  not  exist  in 
English;  it  means,  as  it  were,  the  far  end  of  a  distance:  dal\) 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         69 

which  fail  to  charm  the  eye.  But  what  is  that 
unaccountable,  mysterious  power  that  draws  me 
to  thee  ?  Why  doth  thy  melancholy  song,  soaring 
from  seas  to  seas,  ring  constantly  in  my  ears  ? 
What  is  in  that  song  ?  What  calls  me,  what  seizes 
my  heart  ?  What  are  these  sounds  that  kiss  so 
painfully  and  wind  themselves  around  my  heart 
and  into  my  soul  ?  Rus'  !  What  desirest  thou 
from  me  ?  Why  dost  thou  gaze  at  me  with  eyes 
full  of  expectation  ?  In  awe  I  stand  before  thy 
vastness  while  the  clouds  over  thee  are  heavy  with 
coming  rain.  .  .  .  What  is  the  prophecy  of  this 
unembraceable  prostor  ?  Is  it  not  in  its  arms  that 
limitless  thought  should  be  born,  in  thy  arms, 
Rus',  which  embrace  all  ?  Is  not  this  the  place 
for  thy  folk-hero — here,  where  there  is  prostor  for 
him  to  unfold  himself  ?  The  power  of  vastness 
embraces  me  and  reflects  itself  in  my  innermost 
depth.  .  .  .  A-ah !  .  .  .  What  a  sparkling, 
glorious  infinity.  .  .  .  Rus'  !  .  .  .' 

May  it  be,  I  wonder,  this  very  sense  of  size  that 
endows  the  Russian  mind  with  that  fearlessness  of 
individual  action  which  is  typical  of  the  Russians  ? 

This  reminds  me  of  another  set  of  words  which  Concep- 
tions 
are    absolutely    untranslatable    and    yet    are    so  without 

.  .  ...         which  a 

essentially  Russian  that  we  simply  could  not  live  Russian 
without  them  !     Our  land  has  given  them  birth  live, 
and   our   self-expression    commands    our   making 
use  of  them  constantly,  daily.     They  all  commence 


70         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

with  the  syllable  of  nuance  raz  (pas)  whether  nouns 
or  verbs.  Now  that  my  reader  has  got,  I  hope, 
the  conception  of  prostor  clear  in  his  mind,  it  will 
be  helpful  to  introduce  this  other  typical  Eussian 
idea  via  the  word  razdolye:  it  is  almost  a  synonym 
to  prostor.  Its  root  (doF)  comes  from  doVa,  which 
means  one's  part  of  something;  in  this  case  it  is 
one's  part  in  this  world  that  is  suggested — and  the 
syllable  raz  distinctly  attaches  to  it  the  nuance  of 
having  that  part  lavishly  spread,  thrown  out  wide 
and  far  ! 

This  raz  is  no  preposition,  no  conjunction;  it 
is  nothing  in  itself,1  and  yet  it  contains  a  world 
of  meaning.  When  asked  by  foreigners  '  What  is  it 
then  ? ' — all  that  a  Russian  usually  does  is  to  throw 
out  his  arms  vigorously  to  his  right  and  left,  to  smile 
as  if  he  suddenly  visionized  something  loveable  and 
to  callup:  '  It  is  this  !  .  .  .  Just  this  !  .  .  .' 

I  cannot  help  this  primitive  manner  of  explana- 
tion either — being  the  only  possible  one — and  am 
delighted  to  see  that  it  does  make  English  people 
grasp  what  we  mean  by  it.  One  of  my  delightfully 
impressionable  English  friends  proved  this  to  me 
by  remarking  instantly  and  gaily :  '  Then  it  is 
not  equivalent  to  the  French  elan,  because  elan 

1  Except  when  it  makes  a  whole  separate  word  (past)— 
a  noun,  with  a  hard  sign  at  the  end,  which  stands  for  '  one  ' 
(besides  the  proper  number  odin),  or  for  '  once ' ;  it  is 
always  used  for  marking  time  :  raz-dva  !  raz-dva  !  (and  not 
odin-dva) — or  raz-dva-tri  (one,  two,  three) ! 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        71 

is  this!9 — and  he  made  a  movement  forward, 
lifting  his  arms  up.  Just  so  !  This  is  an  exact 
illustration  of  the  difference.  If  you  want  to  feel 
the  meaning  of  the  nuance  raz — vigorously  throw 
your  arms  out  horizontally,  as  wide  as  you  can  ! 
Now  attach  this  feeling  of  raz  to  the  conception  of 
space  as  if  there  were,  say,  prairies  all  around  you— 
and  you  get  the  synonym  to  prostor:  razdolye. 
It  is  a  definition  of  an  abstract  idea. 

Then  attach  it  to  the  idea  of — No  !  Here  I  am 
caught  again  because  you  haven't  got  that  idea 
either,  so  I  must  explain  its  Russian  meaning. 
The  root  m.ali  suggests  a  vigorous  physical  move- 
ment of  one's  arms — not  a  waving  like  the  gentle 
waving  with  one's  wrist,  which  is  practised  in 
England  from  babyhood,  but  one  broad  gesture, 
a  swing.  Now  try  to  attach  the  nuance  of  the 
raz  to  the  meaning  of  the  mah — and  you  get  the 
razmah  without  which  no  Russian  could  find  a 
way  for  expressing  another  beloved  abstract  con- 
ception. Razmah  of  one's  spiritual  power  is  a 
fine  thing,  and  it  comes  into  Russian  prose,  poetry 
and  ordinary  speech  constantly. 

Razsv'et  means  the  morning  dawn,  the  break  of 
day;  and  this  will  perhaps  make  things  clearer  to 
my  reader  if  I  tell  him  that  sv'et  means  light:  thus 
the  word  conveys  a  picture  of  the  '  light  throwing 
itself  out.' 

There  is  no  wonder  that  the  word  razgul  dees 


72        THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

not  exist  in  English:  its  second  syllable,  the  root 
gul,  refers  to  '  walking  out '  (gul'anye  =  a  walk, 
an  outing,  an  entertainment  out  of  doors;  guVat'= 
to  have  a  walk);  well,  with  the  nuance  of  raz 
attached  to  it,  it  conveys  such  a  kind  of  '  outing  ' 
as  is  not  tolerated  in  England  !  Razgul  does  not 
imply  a  certain  limited  time  given  up  to  a  casual 
debauch,  but  one's  whole  mode  of  life  saturated 
with  it.  An  excellent  illustration  is  Dmitri  Kara- 
mazov :  his  life  was  all  of  it  a  razgul. 

In  the  form  of  a  verb,  razgul'atsa,  it  is  much 
milder  and  carries  the  idea  of  a  wholehearted 
sparkling  gaiety  by  which  a  Kussian  is  swept  away 
whenever  it  inflames  him. 

The  raz  attached  to  such  verbs  as  to  speak,  to 
make  merry,  to  walk,  to  sleep,  conveys  the  idea 
expressed  in  English  by  '  To  let  oneself  go  ' :  if  you 
let  yourself  go  in  speaking,  merry-making,  walking, 
or  sleeping  to  such  an  extent  that  it  becomes 
difficult  to  prevent  you  from  going  on  with  it— 
you  fall  under  the  Russian  definitions  razgovoritsa, 
razv'es'elitsa,  razoytls\  razospatsa,  etc.  There  are 
dozens  of  them.  One  can  do  anything  to  the 
extent  of  raz-doing  it !  Only,  English  people 
seldom  allow  themselves  such  luxuries,  so  there 
exist  no  definitions  for  them. 
Aa  im-  1  must  take  my  chance  on  this  occasion  to  make 

portant  .  . 

digres-      an  important  digression.     I  am  bound  to  fire  some 
shots  at  '  The  English  '  throughout  this  book— 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         73 

due  to  the  lack  of  definitions  in  the  English  lan- 
guage, corresponding  to  the  blank  spaces  in  English 
life.  With  us,  instead  of  those  blank  spaces,  are 
the  most  breezy,  passionate,  natural,  warm,  cares- 
sive  things  (and  definitions  for  them).  But  I 
always  remember  the  remark  of  a  young  Russian 
fellow  who  had  received  his  school  and  university 
education  in  England : 

'  Take  care,  don't  mix  them  all  up  together:  the 
present  younger  generation  in  England  has  mostly 
got  the  gift  of  spontaneity  and  uvlecheniye  '  (we 
were  speaking  in  Russian) — '  They  are  not  afraid 
of  showing  what  they  really  feel.  They  hate  the 
old  stodginess,  and  dryness,  and  artificial  reserve 
of  the  Victorian  era.' 

Now,  asking  my  reader  to  remember  this  too, 
I  feel  justified  in  continuing  my  investigations  in 
our  two  languages:  after  all,  it  is  the  younger 
English  generation  that  has  got  the  new  sap- 
resembling  the  Russian  one — flowing  through  it, 
but  not  the  English  language  yet. 

They  say  that  a  Dutch  tourist,  after  having 
stayed  in  Russia  for  some  sime,  was  asked  by  his 
host  how  he  liked  our  country. 

'  I  like  it  very  much,'  said  the  Dutchman.  '  The 
only  thing  which  strikes  me  is — why  do  you  throw 
out  your  arms  so  often  ?  One  does  not  see  this 
gesture  in  our  land  at  all.  We  don't  do  it.' 

'  I  should  like  to  know  how  could  you  possibly 


74          THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

do  it  over  there  ? ' — tlie  Russian  remarked  with 
a  humorous  smile. 

To  the  sense  of  size  should  be  added  the  sense 
of  motion.  .  .  .  True,  a  few  years  ago  Eussia 
had  been  thrown  by  force  of  reaction  into  a  state 
of  marasme.  There  was  almost  a  stagnant  stand- 
still in  the  one-time  keenness  for  social  interests. 
Russian  society  (compared  to  the  one  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  century)  seemed  to  be  dozing  off, 
tired  to  the  verge  of  indifference  with  regard  to 
our  place  in  the  world  in  the  future.  .  .  .  But 
here  comes  the  war,  and  all  is  awake  and  throbbing 
with  genuine,  intense  love:  for  homeland,  to  be 
freed  from  the  at  last  realized  German  yoke,  for  the 
people  represented  by  the  soldatik,  that  wonderful 
grey  hero,  for  the  prostor  of  Russia  that  gives 
the  chance  to  the  unsophisticated  heroism  of  old 
folk-lore  to  '  unfold '  itself  (razvernutsa)  again 
for  a  great  cause.  .  .  .  And,  instinctively,  one's 
mind  returns  to  Gogol' :  who  but  he,  in  the  thirties 
of  the  last  century,  spoke  about  Russia  in  those 
allegorical  pages  which  everyone  of  us  has  learned 
almost  by  heart  for  their  beauty,  but  to  which 
no  one  has  ever  attached  any  prophetic  mean- 
ing ?  If  anything,  one  felt  somewhat  ashamed  of 
those  lines  where  he  boasts  of  Russia  with  the 
daring  frankness  of  a  genius !  I  have  already 
mentioned  that  self -advertising  is  not  a  Russian 
feature;  and  in  our  private  life  it  has  always  been 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        75 

sufficient  for  any  ordinary  person  to  express  any- 
thing approaching  Gogol'  's  admiration  for  Eussia 
to  be  suspected  of  chauvinism.  The  now  almost 
extinct,  but  formerly  aggressive,  '  Union  of  True 
Russians/  has  taught  us  to  be  over-conscientious, 
and  we  thought  it  almost  a  crime  against  our  own 
country  to  express  our  love  for  her  openly. 

But  this  is  changing  now !  And,  speaking 
here  chiefly  of  the  Russians  as  reflected  in  their 
language,  I  cannot  omit  those  pearls  in  the  realm 
of  that  language  which  have  become  the  expression 
of  the  idea  growing  nowadays  in  many  European 
minds  (with  the  exception  of  those  of  German 
origin!)  .  .  .  I  have  never  seen  a  translation  of  the 
pages  I  am  thinking  of,  and  I  would  not  follow  one 
if  I  had  met  one.  I  stand  breathless  before  my 
task,  like  every  Russian  would.  And  yet  I  must  try 
and  '  translate '  these  pages  as  I  did  those  above- 
not  into  classical  English,  no  ! — but  keeping  to  the 
original  as  literally  as  possible :  because  my  purpose 
is  to  try  and  show  to  a  literally  inclined  reader 
how  the  mind  of  a  Russian  genius  works  (if  this 
can  be  called  '  work  '),  what  are  its  national  ways 
of  self-expression. 

These  inspired  pages  are  addressed  to  a  troyka,  Tr6yka. 
which  Gogol'  compares,  in  his  heart,  to  Russia 
herself.     Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  explain  to 
some  of  my  readers  what  a  troyka  means:  it  is 
the  national  Russian  team,  three  horses  abreast. 


76         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

The  middle  one  is  a  powerful '  trotter  '  who  steadily 
keeps  to  his  action,  while  the  two  horses  at  his 
sides  are  trained  to  bend  their  necks  away  from 
him,  so  that  the  persons  in  the  vehicle  (which  may 
be  of  any  kind,  just  as  any  kind  of  vehicle  may  be 
drawn  by  horses  driven  tandem)  can  see  their  pro- 
riles  all   the  time.     The  part  of  these  two  pri- 
st'ajnyia  ('  attached  ones  ')  is  not  the  pulling  itself; 
they  are  attached  very  lightly;  their  business  in 
forming  two-thirds  of  a  troyka  is  the  so-called 
playing :  the  element  of  beauty,  the  graceful,  flying 
motion,    the    elegance,  the   gaiety.  .  .  .     Try   to 
imagine  the  musical  chord  of  the  little  bells  tink- 
ling under  the  duga  (bent  wood  high  over  the  neck 
of  the  middle  horse),   the  power  of  the  broad- 
chested  trotter  (korennoy),  throwing  his  legs  out 
far,  in  that '  rare  '  Eussian  trot,  try  to  imagine  the 
vitality  and  beauty,  and  especially  the  elegant,  com- 
plex rhythm  of  the  troyka  flying  along  the  broad 
roads  in  the  open  country  and  down  every  hill. . . . 
'  Eh,  Troyka  !     Troyka-the-bird  !     Who  has  in- 
vented thee  ?     Thou  must  have  been  born  with  a 
quick-thinking  people,  in  that  land  which  means 
no  joke,  but  which  has  flung  itself  out,1  vast  and 
smooth,  half  over  the  world.  .  .  .     Go,  count  the 
mile-stones  till  they  dance  in  your  eyes  !     It  would 
seem   there   is   nothing   complicated   about   thee, 

1  The  Russian  verb  is  razm'etnulas'.    The  adverb  following 
it  (pOBHeMt-rjiaflHeM'L)  is  absolutely  unattainable  in  English . 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        77 

troyka:  just  a  few  strokes  of  the  axe  and  chisel  in 
the  hands  of  a  quick  peasant — and  there  thou  art ! 
No  German  leggings  about  the  driver — just  beard 
and  gloves — and  the  devil  knows  what  he  is  sitting 
on  !  But  there  he  leans  forward,  and  swings  his 
knut,  and  starts  his  song — and  the  steeds  are  like 
a  hurricane,  the  spokes  in  the  wheels  are  one 
smooth  circle,  and  the  road  gives  a  shudder,  and 
an  involuntary  shout  escapes  the  startled  passer- 
by. ...  And  there  she  flies,  she  flies — the  troyka  ! 
Already  one  but  sees  in  the  distance  something 
swirling  and  dust  eddying  in  the  air. 

'  Art  thou  not,  Rus',  flying  like  a  lightning-swift 
troyka,  too  ?  The  road  is  a  whirlwind  of  dust 
under  thee,  the  bridges  tremble,  and  all  remains 
behind.  .  .  .  What  is  this  awe-inspiring  motion, 
like  a  bolt  thrown  down  from  the  skies  ?  What 
unknown  power  is  there  in  these  unseen  horses  ? 
.  .  .  Eh,  horses,  horses  !  What  horses  !  .  .  .  Is 
there  a  storm  hidden  in  your  manes  ?  Is  every 
little  vein  of  yours  throbbing  with  responsiveness  ? 
.  .  .  There  comes  the  song  you  know — and — 
hardly  touching  the  ground  with  your  hoofs — you 
are  like  arrows  flying  through  the  air.  .  .  . 

'  And  there  she  soars,  inspired  by  God  !  .  .  . 
Rus',  whither  fliest  thou?  G ive  thine  answer !  .  .  . 
There  is  no  answer.  Bewitchingly  goes  the  little 
bell,  the  air  torn  into  fragments  rings  in  your  ears 
and  becomes  wind.  .  .  .  All  flies  by  and  remains 


78        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

behind.  .  .  .  And,  looking  askance,  other  peoples 
and  countries  stand  aside  and  give  way  to  thee.  .  .  .' 

This  sounds  awful !  (I  don't  mean  Gogol'  's  pre- 
mature vision,  but  his  speech  in  the  English  attire.) 
It  is  robbed  of  all  its  winding,  throbbing  beauty. 
It  is  like  a  photograph  as  compared  to  the  photo- 
graphed landscape  itself:  no  colours,  no  breeze,  no 
vivifying  warmth  !  only  the  skeleton.  Because  the 
genuine  colours  and  breeze  and  warmth  of  the 
philosophy  and  of  the  syntax  itself  of  the  Kussian 
speech  reaching  their  climax  in  these  pages  have  no 
equivalents  whatever. 

Perhaps  this  statement  will  become  clearer  if  I 
say  that  one  can  easily  translate  this  English 
Gogol'  back  into  the  Eussian,  but — if  one  closely 
follows  the  English  '  original ' — it  will  not  be  the 
Russian  Gogol'  !  Very  far  from  the  genuine  one 
indeed.  Because  there  are  many  ways  to  say  a 
fine  Eussian  sentence  within  the  limits  of  a  given 
idea,  but  giving  it  each  time  different  half- 
shades,  whilst  there  will  be  but  one  certain  correct 
way  to  say  that  sentence  in  English,  or  in  any  other 
language.1  The  very  exclamation  by  which  Gogol' 
hails  Eussia  as  represented  by  troyka  (and  which 

1  Since  these  lines  were  written  I  have  made  a  special  study 
of  the  English  translations  of  the  Dead  Souls  and  Inspector 
General  on  their  republication ;  and  I  find  my  suppositions 
fully  realized.  Gogol'  's  quiet  humour  in  Dead  Souls  can 
more  or  less  find  its  expression  in  using  a  rich  English  style 
(with  the  exception,  of  course,  of  the  killing  names  he  gives 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        79 

is  usually  wrongly  spelt  in  English  with  a  k — Ekh) 
always  carries  with  us  a  certain  attitude  in  itself; 
in  ejaculating  9x-B!  =  M/  we  mean:  'Here  is  a 
thing  (or  situation)  about  which  one  could  say  a 
lot!  ...  But  I  am  unable  to.  .  .  .'  There  is 
a  touch  of  longing  in  it. 

I  cannot  omit  at  this  convenient  occasion  that 
putting  the  artificial  kh  for  a  Russian  h  not  only 
makes  this  word  look  like  a  caricature  and  takes 
away  its  long  sound,  but  it  even  alters  its  mean- 
ing: because  there  is  another  exclamation,  BKB  !— 
consisting  of  the  same  deep  e  and  a  k  (in  the  place  of 
an  h),  but  it  conveys  quite  a  different  atmosphere: 
it  carries  astonishment  and  reproach  with  it  and 
stands  for  the  quintessence  of,  '  Just  look  at  it ! 
Did  you  ever  !'  Thus,  transliterating  both  BX-L 
and  BKT,  as  ekh,  the  translators  kill  the  meaning 
of  both — substituting  for  it  something  like  an  old 

man's  cough. 

*  *  *  *  * 

Now,  my  patient  or  impatient  reader,  allow  me  The  pos- 
to  dwell  for  a  moment  on  the  idea  itself  of  these  fulfilment 
lines  of  Gogol'  's,  leaving  form  alone.  vision. 

to  his  characters,  in  place  of  which  we  see  blank  spaces  or 
meaningless  substitutes,  to  which  we  shall  return  later);  but 
as  a  passionate  lover  of  his  country,  he  will  remain  untranslat- 
able for  ever.  The  unknown  translator  of  Dead  Sauls  must 
excuse  my  saying  that  he  has  approached  the  original  beauty 
of  the  Troyka-pages  no  nearer  than  I  have  myself.  We  are 
both  equally  tied  by  the  entire  absence  of  an  equivalent  mode 
of  speech  in  English. 


80        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

This  idea  should  not  frighten  any  Englishman. 
The  fear  one  still  meets  amongst  the  British  public 
with  regard  to  Russia  as  the  foe  to  be  fought 
next  is  due  only  to  the  lack  of  thorough  acquaint- 
ance with  the  country.  I  have  mentioned  already 
that  the  educated  Kussians  have  always  expected 
the  light  to  come  to  them  from  the  West.  An 
obvious  proof  of  this  was  the  encouragement,  both 
private  and  official,  but  always  spontaneous,  with 
which  the  German  colonist  and  the  German  accur- 
ate official  used  to  be  met  all  over  the  Russian 
land.  It  was  only  the  peasantry  and  the  working 
classes  that  permitted  themselves  the  attitude  of 
frank,  although  inactive  and  humorous  distrust, 
whilst  the  most  advanced  Intelligentziya  was 
naively  trying  her  best  to  sow  the  Western  Culture 
on  the  Russian  soil — wherever  the  seeds  could  be 
got  from.  Even  our  revolutionaries  were  fre- 
quently too  Western  in  their  whole-hearted  efforts 
to  raise  our  village  population  from  its  '  un-Euro- 
pean  '  darkness.  The  war  has  brought  the  sudden 
revelation  that  there  exists  Western  culture  and 
Western  culture  !  And  England  should  rest  as- 
sured that  now  our  educated  society  will  be  most 
keen  and  conscientious  to  rectify  its  mistake. 
The  psychological  attitude  from  the  very  beginning 
of  the  struggle  has  acquired  a  serious,  steady  form. 
There  is  no  hysteria,  no  rushing  and  dashing  about 
it;  none,  even,  of  the  old  nonchalance  expressed 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         81 

in  the  narrowly-patriotic  saying:  '  We  can  bury 
the  foe  under  our  caps  r=Shapkami  zaJciddyem! 
Every  person  and  every  written  page  that  now 
comes  from  Kussia  is  full  of  something  new.     The 
nation  is  awakening  to  the  consciousness  of  her 
serious,  quiet  power.     She  will  presently  find  her- 
self within  herself.     In  that  new  coming  era  there 
will  be  room  enough  for  Western  influence  and  for 
Western  aspirations  only  inasmuch  as  these  will 
entirely  correspond  with  the  Slavonic  ones.     The 
element  with  which  will  probably  rest  the  approach-  The  new 
ing  shaping  of  Kussia  will  be  a  perfectly  new  one :  national- 
radical  nationalism.    Because,  formerly  our  nation- ism< 
alists  were  the  reactionaries,  and  our  radicals  were 
thus  opposed  to  them  voluntarily  and  involun- 
tarily.    But  the  new  type  of  a  true  Eussian  cul- 
turist  will  come  forward  in  masses,  and  will  present 
the  accounts  to  all  debtors.    These  will  have  to  be 
traced  everywhere. 

There  is  room  for  hoping  that,  next,  Eussia  will 
make  her  greatest  stride  ahead. 

Therefore  England  should  not  for  a  moment  No  danger 
doubt  the  good  of  helping  her :  she  is  helping  the 
new  Eussia,  that  Eussia  which  is  becoming  con- 
scious of  all  that  is  best  in  her,  and  who  means  to 
foster  that  best.  One  ingredient  of  the  latter  is 
love  for  peace.  And  as  long  as  there  is  plenty  of 
prostor  for  us  to  unfold  ourselves  (razvernutsa) 

physically  and   spiritually  in  our  immense  land, 

6 


82        THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

there  is  no  vestige  of  danger  for  anyone.  Our 
Shchedrin,  satirist  as  he  was,  said :  '  Prostor  calls 
forth  a  limitless,  unconquerable  thirst  for  love.' 
Aggressiveness  has  never  been  a  feature  of  the 
Slavs,  and  one  could  not  repeat  this  too  much  to 
those  who  hesitate:  Kussia  will  now  find  means 
to  develop  within  herself;  she  will  find  ample  room, 
ample  raw  material,  and  ample  spiritual  power  to 
do  so  without  troubling  anyone. 

***** 
Atypical       In  returning  to  the  Kussian  language  I  would 

Russian  .  •      i  i      r       i 

word  for    like  to  mention  now  a  typical  word  ot  a  less  grave 

quick  wit.  ,,  ,,  T.  T.     . 

nature  than  the  preceding  pages.  It  is  a  noun, 
sounding,  approximately,  sm'otka ;  it  means  the 
capacity  of  thinking  very  quickly  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment,  or,  initiative  plus  speed.  For  in- 
stance, sm'otka  is  priceless  in  this  war  against  the 
Germans  to  upset  their  splendidly-planned  theories. 
It  has  been  proved  now  that  they  are  helpless 
before  the  Unexpected.  It  blinds  them.  Here  is 
an  example  of  sm'otka. 

Three  Russian  infantry  soldiers  managed  to 
penetrate  in  their  reconnaissance  expedition  so 
far  that  they  suddenly  found  themselves  right 
amongst  the  enemy:  there  they  were,  in  a  large 
field,  almost  enclosed  by  Germans  within  earshot. 
Of  course,  the  first  thing  they  did  on  realizing  this 
circumstance  was  to  scratch  the  back  of  their  heads 
(no  Russian  in  perplexity  can  do  without  this  ges- 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        83 

ture  !) ;  after  which,  obedient  to  Fate,  they  re- 
marked quietly  that  '  their  hour  has  evidently 
come.'  At  that  moment  there  came  a  noise  of  a 
propeller,  and  a  German  aeroplane,  gracefully  and 
in  full  confidence,  landed  quite  near  them. 

'  Look  here,  brothers,'  said  one  of  the  soldatiki, 
smiling,  '  we  are  lost  all  the  same,  so  let  us  try  a 
joke.     Come    along    and    take    them    prisoners.' 
Said — done  ! — as  they  say  in  Russian.1    Up  walk 
the  three  fellows  to  the  aeroplane,  and  approach 
face  to  face  the  slightly-surprised  airman  and  his 
pilot,    before    these   have    time    to   stretch  their 
limbs.     A  bullet  in  the    temple  finishes  the  pilot 
on  the  spot,  after  which  the  soldatiki  quietly  but 
clearly  explain  to  the  officer,  by  means  of  ges- 
ticulation, that  he  is  to  pull  the  machine  along  the 
field.     That  German  officer  had  certainly  no  atom 
of  sm'otka  in  him,  for  he  obediently  did  so;  partly 
screened  by  the  aeroplane  the  three  men  led  their 
prey  through  the  perilously  narrow  space  between 
the  lines  of  the  enemy  to  the  Russian  lines,  whilst 
the  Germans  must  have  been  looking  on  with  that 
same    slow  -  working    surprise    (the    opposite    to 
sm'otka !)    at   that   airman   of    theirs,    who   was 
steadily  pushing  his  machine  towards  the  Russian 
side  ! 

Another  case  of  sm'otka  is  no  less  historical, 
though  peaceful.     When  Catherine  II.  was  erect- 

1  CKaaano — cfl'fejiaHO  ! 


84         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

ing  the  monument  to  Peter  the  Great,  she  was  dis- 
pleased with  the  solid  rock  of  granite  which  had 
been  brought  as  a  foundation  for  it,  with  immense 
difficulties,  from  Finland. 

'  I  will  not  have  it,'  she  said,  glancing  at  it  from 
her  carriage.  '  It  is  ugly  in  shape.' 

This  time  it  was  many  men  in  the  enormous 
crowd  in  the  vast  Winter  Square  who  scratched 
their  heads :  To  take  the  huge  thing  away  ? 
After  all  the  trouble  .  .  .  ? 

Several  courtiers  dared  to  approach  the  Empress, 
explaining  that  the  task  of  removing  the  rock 
would  be  as  enormous  as  fetching  it. 

'  Dig  out  a  hole  close  by  and  push  it  down  !' 
came  a  voice  from  the  crowd. 

The  peasant  was  richly  rewarded  for  his  sm'otka; 
and  the  granite  rock,  which  did  not  pass  the  in- 
spection of  an  artistic  taste,  lies  buried  close  to  the 
fine  monument. 

Of  course,  that  capacity  for  quick-thought  takes 
at  times  comical  forms.  A  Eussian  general  who 
was  very  keen  on  broadening  the  outlook  of  his 
men,  told  me  about  his  experience  at  the  Soldiers' 
School  of  which  he  was  in  command  when  a  young 
officer  of  nineteen.  The  chief  characteristic  of  his 
men — all  of  them  country  fellows — was  that  they 
were  never  given  to  doubt  or  hesitation:  their 
brains  worked  as  fast  as  possible,  in  some  direc- 
tion or  other  !  One  day  the  general  in  command 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        85 

of  the  district  came  to  inspect  the  school  at  work. 
Taking  some  pride  in  the  advanced  nature  of  his 
teaching,  the  youthful  ardent  officer  suggested  to 
his  chief  that  he  might  put  his  pupils  some  ques- 
tions in  ancient  history. 

'  Oh,  indeed  ?' — Pleasantly  surprised,  the  general 
addressed  one  of  the  keen -looking  fellows :  (  Dost 
thou  know  anything  about  Socrates  V 

'  Yes,  sir  !' 

'Well?     What  about  him?' 

'  He  is  the  left  forward  horse  in  the  second 
troyka  with  the  sixth  gun  in  the  third  battery 
who  wants  shoeing,  sir !'  came  as  quick  as 
lightning. 

The  young  scholar  forgot  for  the  moment  who 
Socrates  was,  but  he  would  not  be  non-plussed, 
and  quickly  thought  of  the  '  Socrates  '  of  his  battery 
called  so  by  the  men  in  honour  of  the  interesting 

lessons. 

*  *  *  H  * 

There  are  some  rather  interesting  points  about ' Man'' 

woman, 

the  conceptions  concerning  man  and  marriage.  a.nd  *  mar 
In  the  olden  days  man  was  called  muj,  and  the  same 
word  stood  for  husband.  Nowadays  muj  means 
husband  only,  whilst  the  new  word  defining  man 
has  grown  out  of  the  same  root  through  the  addi- 
tion of  the  sound  china :  muj  china.  This  addition 
is  not  meaningless;  already,  in  those  days  when 
muj  meant  man,  the  word  chin  meant  rank:  thus 


86        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

the  newer  word,  muj china,  means  really  a  creature 
having  the  rank  of  a  man. 

Similar  promotion  has  been  granted  to  woman. 
The  old  word  jena  meant  both  woman  and  wife, 
whereas  now  jena  means  wife  only,  and  the  newer 
word  jenshchina  has  come  into  being  for  defining 
woman — a  creature  having  the  rank  of  a  woman  ! 

The  English  expression  '  to  marry  '  is  strictly 
divided  in  Russian  according  to  facts.  Speaking 
about  a  girl  who  is  going  to  marry  we  say  ond 
vyhodit  zdmuj  ;  note  the  last  two-syllabled  word, 
which  means  '  behind  man,'  and  you  will  get  the 
original  meaning:  '  she  is  going  out,  or  leaving  her 
parental  home,  to  place  herself  behind  a  man  ' ; 
isn't  this  an  exact  definition  of  what  marriage 
meant  for  a  girl  even  not  so  very  long  ago  ?  Whilst 
speaking  of  a  man  about  to  wed,  we  say  on  jenitsa 
—which  means,  as  it  were,  '  he  be-wifes  himself.' 
This/a£0'2  de  parler  indicates  much  more  independ- 
ence in  comparison  with  the  meaning  of  marriage 
for  a  girl :  it  is  just  the  same  grammatical  form  as 
'  soaping  oneself '  (mylitsa)  or  '  steaming  oneself  ' 
in  a  bath-house  (pdritsa)  ! 

The  words  fiance  and  fiancee  are  with  us  defined 
thus:  jenlh  stands  for  the  man  who  obviously 
has  involved  himself  in  some  way  with  a  jena 
(wife),  as  the  stem  of  the  word  clearly  indicates; 
whereas  the  word  for  fiancee  is  derived  from  the 
Old  Slavonic  '  not  know  '  (n'e  v'edat' ;  n'ev'esta), 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         87 

which  suggests  the  state  of  mind  of  a  young  girl 
who  is  about  to  be  married.  Both  frank  and 
poetic. 

To  return  to  the  old  word  chin  (rank) :  besides '  Chin»' 

'  chmov- 

the  definitions  for  man  and  woman  it  has  formed  nik»'  and 

Peter  the 

a  nucleus  for  rather  a  curious  set  of  conceptions.  Great. 
Obviously,  in  times  of  yore,  chin  conveyed  the  idea 
of  a  dignified,  imposing  personality,  because  the 
old  word  bezc/mistvo  meant  every  scandalous  or 
rowdy  scene :  its  meaning  is  quite  plain,  as  its  first 
syllable,  bez,  stands  for  (  without ' ;  thus  things 
'  without  chin  '  were  things  deprived  of  dignity, 
as  it  were — deprived  of  the  atmosphere  which 
should  go  with  rank.  It  is  a  word  which  is  still 
often  applied  to  disorderly  crowds  or  drunken 
brawls. 

Again,  since  Peter  the  Great's  effort  at  putting 
Russia  in  order  there  has  appeared  the  word 
chinovnik,  deliberately  created  from  the  same  root; 
that  is  to  say,  a  man  of  a  certain  rank  in  Govern- 
ment service,  as  opposed  to  a  private  individual. 
Unfortunately,  the  word  chinovnik  soon  acquired 
the  additional  characteristic  of  callousness  and 
greediness,  and  thus  turned  into  a  distinct  defini- 
tion of  a  type  opposed  to  all  big-hearted,  generous 
altruistic  work  for  the  people.  There  exist 
Memoirs  of  a  French  aristocrat  who  visited 
Russia  in  the  times  of  Alexander  III.;  in  them 
he  wrote: 


88        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

'  II  y  a  en  Eussie  un  espece  de  canaille  qu'on 
appelle  chinovnik.' 

Apropos  of  the  word  chinovnik,  one's  thoughts 
involuntarily  approach  the  question  which  the 
Eussians  are  often  asked  in  this  country:  'How 
is  it  that  your  charming  nation  produces  such 
horrible  creatures  as  your  bureaucrats  ?' 

This  problem  has  always  been  instinctively  felt 
even  in  Eussia  herself,  although  we  do  not  actually 
call '  charming  '  everyone  who  is  not  a  chinovnik 
(bureaucrat).  Looking  backwards  now,  at  this 
hour  of  re-valuations,  one  can  attempt  an  historical 
solution  of  the  question.  Ever  since  Peter  the 
Great  undertook  the  enlightening  of  Old  Eussia 
by  means  of  wholesale  import  of  Germans  into  the 
land,  there  began  a  continuous  inoculation  of 
utterly  un-Eussian  aspirations,  alongside  with  the 
technical  machinery  of  State  life.  The  Tsars  and 
Tsaritsas  after  Peter,  right  up  to  Alexander  I. 
(1725-1800),  were  of  German  flesh,  blood,  and  edu- 
cation. They  and  their  helpers  took  great  care 
to  fill  up  all  the  ruling  Eussian  institutions  with 
Germans.  The  only  exception  was  Catherine  II., 
who  did  not  exclude  Eussians  as  a  matter  of  prin- 
ciple. Well,  is  it  not  logical  to  suppose  that,  with 
the  adaptability  and  flexibility  of  the  Eussian 
nature,  those  of  the  Eussians  who  did  form  the 
minor  proportion  of  the  officialdom,  were  gradually 
influenced  and  saturated  with  a  hitherto  unknown 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        89 

spiritual  narrowness  and  dryness  ?  Would  they 
not,  having  the  pompousness  and  greediness 
grafted  on  to  them  from  generation  to  generation, 
gradually  degenerate  into  that  type  which  indeed 
stands  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  Kussian  nation 
—and  which  even  now  is  trying  to  stop  the  wheels 
of  a  national  spiritual  upheaval  ?  Now  it  seems 
to  be  a  likely  conclusion  that  Peter  the  Great, 
however  wise  his  eventual  ideals  were,  has  made 
the  usual  mistake  of  a  self-made  man  (which 
he  was)  in  using  without  discrimination  those 
means  on  a  large  scale  which  impressed  him  most. 

'  Kussia  is  large  and  abundant,  but  there  is  no 
order  in  her.'  These  words  are  attributed  in  the 
earliest  Russian  legend  to  the  North  Russians,  who 
went  (about  the  eighth  century)  to  seek  for  rulers 
abroad  and  brought  with  them  three  wandering 
warriors  from  Scandinavia.  Nevertheless,  no  order 
resulted  from  it,  and  Peter  the  Great,  in  trying 
to  introduce  it  himself,  almost  repeated  the  mistake 
of  the  aboriginal  Russians !  Worse  still,  he  overdid 
it.  If  he  could  return  again,  he  would  certainly 
rise  to  the  full  height  of  his  seven  odd  feet,  and 
deliberately  apply  to  the  German  backs  his  famous 
Russian  dubmka  ("  the  dear  cudgel  "),  which  he 
invariably  carried  about  with  him  two  centuries 
ago  in  his  busy  work  of  Germanizing  the  Russians  ! 

Such  are  the  jokes  of  the  old  dame  History. 


90        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

An  ex-  The  Eussians  find  that  toothache  is  different 
of  trans-  from  all  other  pains,  and  they  indicate  this  differ- 
ideas.  ence  by  a  special  word  which  means  the  pain  of  a 
recurrent,  grinding  nature,  entirely  different  from 
the  pain  of  a  burn  or  a  cut.  The  verb  indicating 
that  sort  of  pain  consists  of  three  letters :  first,  n  ; 
then  the  exclusively  Eussian  hard  vowel  which 
has  got  to  be  defined  in  some  way  or  other,  and  for 
which  the  English  y  has  been  adopted;  and  a  soft 
t  :  nyt\  The  conception  of  toothache  conveyed  by 
this  verb  includes  a  subtle  idea  of  a  monotonous, 
incessant  sound.  .  .  .  Well,  the  Eussian  mind 
has  transferred  this  word  to  indicate  those  persons 
who  possess  the  unfortunate  capacity  for  getting 
on  your  nerves  by  constantly  airing  their  own 
grievances  as  well  as  finding  that  '  the  times 
are  out  of  joint '  altogether.  For  instance,  if  a 
friend  visits  you  evening  after  evening  and  goes 
on  till  midnight  with  the  same  old  grumblings 
and  complaints,  you  exclaim  at  last,  if  you  are 
Eussian:  'Stop  your  nyt-mg !'  (Da  brcs't'e  vy 
nyt'I). 

We  make  this  little  phrase  very  intense  without 
possessing  the  auxiliary  verb  do.  One  of  the 
numerous  ways  of  intensifying  the  meaning  of  any 
sentence  consists  in  applying  the  conjunction  yes 
(da)  in  one  of  its  various  shades  :  thus  the  above 
exclamation  literally  runs  in  Eussian,  '  Da  stop 
you  nyt' !'  (We  need  no  preposition  to  before  our 


THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE      91 

infinitives.)  Thus  being  addressed,  the  most  annoy- 
ing melancholic  will  mostly  become  silent. 

Kecently,  on  hearing  this,  a  bright  English  girl 
asked:  '  But  isn't  silence  the  normal  state  of 
melancholies  ?'  This  remark  brought  home  to  me 
an  additional  point  of  difference  in  national  indivi- 
duality. A  Kussian  melancholic — even  a  melan- 
cholic ! — is  apt  to  go  on  pouring  his  melancholy 
out,  so  to  speak;  and  that  is  just  what  is  called 
'  nyt  '-ing  (nytyo).  Undoubtedly  the  English 
variety  of  a  melancholic  is  more  attractive.  Here 
the  tendency  of  locking  up  one's  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings from  other  people  certainly  greatly  adds  to 
their  comfort. 

There  is  one  more  Kussian  word  of  the  same  class  A  very 

.     Russian 

which  makes  every  good  translator  stop  short :  it  concep- 
is  toskd.  They  usually  end  by  giving  for  it  the 
English  words  depression  or  despondency — but  it 
is  not  the  same  thing.  Toska  is  a  very  poetical 
term,  used  throughout  the  folk-lore;  and  in  its 
form  of  a  verb,  toskovdt',  it  is  equally  popular. 
We  even  apply  this  verb  speaking  separately  of 
our  thought,  heart,  or  blood:  for  instance:  My 
heart  toskuyet ;  my  thought  toskuyet ;  my  blood 
toskuyet. 

But  the  most  popular  way  is  to  use  it  quite  alone. 
Therefore  the  English  '  yearning,'  as  well  as  '  de- 
pression '  and  '  despondency,'  cannot  compete 
with  the  independent  power  of  the  to  ska,  either. 


92        THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

If  a  chum  walks  gloomily  into  your  study,  throws 
himself  on  to  your  couch,  and  remains  motionless, 
his  eyebrows  and  lips  alone  expressive  of  pain, 
and  you  ask  (if  you  are  not  chutki  enough  !) : 
'  What's  the  matter  ?'  he  is  sure  to  say  the  one 
word:  '  Toska  !'  Then  you  will  remember  that  he 
had  lost  someone  he  loved,  or  simply  that  lately 
the  man  '  couldn't  find  a  place  for  himself  on  earth.' 
Or  you  may  overlook,  by  chance,  a  young  girl 
painfully  clasping  her  arms  in  some  lonely  wood  or 
garden,  and  overhear  her  repeating  to  herself  the 
only  v/ord,  '  Toska,  toska  !'  and  you  will  know 
what  she  feels  like.  ...  '  Eh,  toska  has  gnawed 
me  up  r  =  Eh,  toska  zayelaf — is  a  very  Russian  ex- 
pression; and  none  of  the  suggested  English  words 
can  be  used  with  that  same  independence  and  all- 
explaining  power.  Such  English  expressions  as 
hump,  spike,  needle,  or  being  in  the  blues,  don't  let 
the  tragic  and  poetical  element  of  the  situation  ap- 
pear, thus  being  no  good  either.  Could  the  English 
mind  be  so  severe  as  not  to  permit  any  tragedy  or 
poetry  into  the  feelings  of  a  person  who  is  pining 
away  with  the  longing  for  his  homeland,  or  his 
beloved  one,  or  for  the  spring  and  sunshine  ? 
'  Homesick '  is  no  good  either,  as  it  serves  one 
purpose  only;  '  longing  '  requires  a  definition  of 
what  one  is  longing  for,  whilst  the  Russians  are 
apt  to  experience  the  toska  without  any  strictly 
defined  cause ;  '  yearning '  cannot  stand  as  an 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        93 

independent,  all-explaining  ejaculation.  We  often 
are  overtaken  by  toska  under  circumstances  when 
a  well-balanced  Englishman  would  simply  refresh 
himself  by  giving  way  to  a  strong  expression. 
Therefore,  perhaps,  the  hump,  the  spike,  etc., 
are  just  the  right  sort  of  definitions — for  the 
English.  But  even  then,  they  are  labelled  by 
the  literati  as  slang  and  are  not  admitted  into 
high-class  literature,  whereas  toska  is  a  classical 
Eussian  word.  There  is  not  one  Russian  poet  who 
wouldn't  have  used  it  in  a  number  of  his  works  ! 

The  Russian  word  for  '  weary  '  (tomit')  has  a  form 
of  an  active  verb  with  us  which  suggests  the  idea 
of  exhaustion,  like  the  one  caused  by  a  long  waiting 
for  something,  or  by  anxiety,  or  even  by  the 
'  singing  '  of  a  solitary  gnat  in  your  bedroom  in 
the  heat  of  a  summer  night.  But  a  Russian  mind 
finds  a  poetic  element  even  in  weariness.  A 
modern  poet,  Feodor  Sologub,  amongst  a  quantity 
of  very  complicated  matter,  drops  a  few  very  simple 
little  triolets  which  speak  direct  to  every  Russian 
heart.  They  are  exactly  the  kind  which  draws 
for  every  lover  of  the  north  a  rodnaya  picture : 

'  My  heart  doth  leap  with  former  joy:  The  '  sad- 

North  once  more,  and  rain  once  more  !  gives  i     ' 

Once  more  the  moss  is  thin  and  tender. 
Once  more  the  sadness  that  gives  joy, 
And  weariness  that  is  so  sweet, 
And  once  again  the  dreamy  woods. 
Beloved  North  !     Beloved  rain  !' 


94         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

'  The  moss  is  sighing  under  foot, 
The  silver  birches  tremble  sweetly, 
The  forest  hid  his  face  in  fog — 
There  is  but  forest,  moss  and  fog, 
A  song  that's  moan,  a  word  that's  sigh, 
Mirage  of  earth  and  dark  of  sky.  .  .  . 
Ye  loved  forest,  tender  moss, 
Ye  silver  birches  trembling  sweetly  !' 

I  had  to  use  the  adjectives  '  loved  '  and  '  be- 
loved/ as  being  nearer  to  the  original  mlly  than 
the  ordinarily  given  translation  '  dear.'  Mily  has 
more  meaning  in  it:  it  indicates  not  only  your 
attitude  towards  someone  or  something,  but  also 
that  he  (or  she,  or  it)  is  nice  in  himself — although 
it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  idea  of  value,  as 
6  dear  '  (dorogoy)  has.  One  applies  this  term  to  a 
nice  person,  or  a  nice  deed,  whereas  one  does  not 
say  in  Kussian,  '  a  dear  person.'  At  the  same  time 
it  is  a  word  which  one  wants  to  whisper  hundreds 
of  times  into  the  ear  of  the  loved  one. 

The  lines  above,  in  which  the  North  is  called 
'  mlly,'  and  the  rain  too,  only  show  what  a  power 
of  loving  there  is  granted  to  the  Slav.  Nature's 
weariness  itself  fills  him  with  '  sadness  that  gives 
joy,'  and  he  is  one  with  her  in  whatever  mood  she 
is:  for  doesn't  she  suggest  that  she  too  enjoys  in 
a  special  kind  of  way  her  autumn  with  its  trist- 
ful, grey,  poor-looking,  monotonous  attire  ?  .  .  .  A 
Russian  seldom  gets  the  hump  through  bad  weather. 
If  he  is  responsive  he  attunes  himself  to  it  without 
getting  upset. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         95 

This  attitude  of  responsiveness,  of  oneness  with  Tfae  one- 
ness with 

Nature's  moods,  is  reflected  in  a  number  of  poems  Nature, 
by  various  authors.  Some  clumsy  English,  but 
one  closely  interpreting  the  Kussian  flow  of  thoughts 
may  be,  perhaps,  allowed  here  for  the  sake  of 
pointing  out  this  very  Russian  feature  of  which 
a  little  has  been  already  shown  in  the  autumnal 
triolets.  The  Russians  are  not  contented  with 
flowers  for  table-decorations  (in  fact,  there  is  no 
such  item  in  the  Russian  life),  not  even  with  a  nice 
little  flower  garden  (we  hardly  do  any  gardening 
for  ourselves,  which  is  a  great  pity).  It  is  again 
the  atmosphere  of  prostor,  a  mood  on  a  large  scale 
that  draws  them.  .  .  .  The  beautiful  poet,  Al'exey 
Tolstoy,  expresses  it  for  us  : 

'  The  sea  is  not  foaming,  the  waves  do  not  splash, 
No  stir  in  the  fir-trees'  dark  branches. 
Reflecting  the  world  in  itself  as  a  glass 
Pellucid  the  sea  lies  quiescent. 

'  I'm  sitting  on  a  rock.     O'er  me  fleecy  clouds 
Hang  motionless  high  in  the  azure.  .  .  . 
My  soul  is  at  peace  with  itself  and  profound — 
The  still  sea  and  I  are  at  one.' 

'  Breaking  and  splashing  the  wave  throws  its  tear-drops  of 

salt  in  my  eyelids. 
Spellbound  I  sit  on  a  rock  while  new  courage  flows  into  my 

spirit. 
Endlessly  forwards  and  backwards  the  surges  are  beating  my 

stronghold. 

Foam  on  their  crests  rolling  snow-white  and  gleaming. 
'  Whom  shall  I  challenge  to  fight,  mighty  sea  ? 
On  whom  shall  I  try  coming  power  ? 


96         THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

My  heart  now  has  learned  the  beauty  of  life, 
Oh,  waves,  ye  have  washed  out  sorrow  ! 
Your  roar  and  your  splash  have  awakened  my  soul — 
The  turmoil  and  I  are  at  one.' 

The  folk-lore  expresses  this  strong  bond  with 
Nature  in  a  slightly  different,  but,  if  anything, 
still  more  poetic  way.  Numbers  of  folk-songs 
begin  with  a  statement  about  some  apparition  of 
Nature  and  then  simply  pass  on  to  the  corres- 
ponding mood  of  the  singer,  placing  the  two  as 
obvious  parallels.  For  instance : 

'  Why  growest  thou  misty,  lucid  dawn,  now  covering  earth  with 

dew? 

Why  growest  thou  pensive,  stately  girl,  tears  rising  to  thine 
eyes  ?' 

Or: 

'  The  green  blade  of  grass  was  growing  in  the  field. 
But  they  have  cut  me  down  and  have  laid  me  to  dry  in  the 
sun. 

Oh,  thou  bitter,  bitter  lot  of  mine  !' 

Or: 

'  The  white  fog  is  rolling  heavily  over  the  lake, 
Grief  and  toska  have  overpowered  the  young  fellow,'  etc. 

All  Russian  poets  follow  this  national  manner 
of  self-expressing  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  the 
quaintest  of  such  parallels  comes  in  one  of  the  latest 
short  poems  by  Igor'  S'ev'er'anin: 

"  A  gnat  is  circling  above  the  duck -weed  of  a  pool,  fascinated 

and  unable  to  penetrate  it. 

I  cannot  take  my  eyes  off  thine,  unable  to  penetrate  their 
meaning/' 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE         97 

I  hear  our  postman,  the  man  I  mentioned  before  Looking 
(see  p.  11),  knock  at  the  door  as  I  am  writing  this. 
...     I   wonder  what  lie  would   think   of    such 
things  ?  ! 

***** 

To  return  to  the  point  of  the  f  lack '  of  spiritual 
fire  with  the  Kussians:  one  must  be  just,  and  say 
that  only  our  exacting  poets,  upset  by  the  sight 
of  a  few  men  in  the  state  of  an  objectless  toska, 
could  generalize  this  accusation  ! 

Chehov,  the  profound  national  psychologist,  said 
(also  in  the  eighties)  in  the  words  of  one  of  his 
everyday  heroes: 

...  If  a  Eussian  does  not  believe  in  God  it  A  main- 
spring of 
means  that  he  believes  in  something  else,  and  this  the 

he  does  not  inactively,  not  like  a  German  doctor  character, 
of  philosophy,  but  so  that  every  one  of  his  beliefs 
makes  a  duga  of  him '  (which  means  that  each 
leading  ideal  bends  or  sways  his  every  action). 
...  '  As  a  small  boy  I  was  told  that  soup  was 
the  main  thing  in  life,  and  I  stuffed  myself  with 
it  to  the  state  of  stupefaction  !  When  a  schoolboy 
I  devoured  books  and  believed  in  every  one  of  them. 
I  ran  away  to  America  and  lured  other  boys  into 
joining  me.  .  .  .  Then  came  Science.  .  .  .  Eeve- 
lation  !  I  thought  that  I  had  grasped  the  solution 
of  existence  from  its  first  pages  !  I  gave  myself 
up  to  Science  passionately,  headlong,  as  one  gives 
oneself  up  to  a  beloved  woman.  Afterwards  I 


98         THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIE  LANGUAGE 

found  out  that  the  beginning  of  each  science  does 
this  with  every  man.  ...  I  went  '  back  to  the 
land  '  and  '  to  the  people '  .  .  .  I  toiled  with  the 
burlaki'  on  the  Volga.  ...  I  came  to  love  the 
Eussian  folk,  their  speech,  their  creative  spirit — I 
loved  them  to  the  verge  of  suffering.  .  .  .  Then 
came  the  abdication  of  property.  .  .  .  Then  the 
non-resistance  to  evil.  .  .  .' 

The  man  does  not  say  what  is  his  worship  at 
the  moment  of  his  telling  the  story  of  his  life  to 
the  author,  but  the  latter  easily  finds  out  that 
his  latest  faith  is — the  faith  in  Woman.  These 
lines  are  typical  of  the  Kussians,  very  typical 
indeed. 
Difference  Here  I  want  to  point  out  that  there  exists  in 

between 

the  English  Eussian  only  one  word  for  the  two  English  ones 

and  the  . 

Russian  '  belief  '  and  '  faith.'  This  is  a  case  where,  appar- 
tions  ently,  Eussian  is  poorer  than  English,  but  I  think 
that  it  has  its  explanation.  The  English  believe 
with  their  minds  and  have  faith  with  their  hearts. 
But  the  much  more  emotional  Eussian  tempera- 
ment is  satisfied  with  what  comes  from  the  heart, 
often  without  subjecting  it  to  the  criticism  of  the 
intellect.  Now,  in  English,  '  belief '  implies  en- 
tirely an  intellectual  attitude,  and  therefore  gives 
a  touch  to  that  conception  which  is  strange  to  a 
Eussian  mind.  Therefore,  again,  Chehov's  sketch 
of  a  typical  '  believer  '  (briefly  given  above)  shows 
the  most  national  Slavonic  feature  of  putting  one's 


THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE        99 

heart  and  soul  into  whatever  one  believes  to 
be  right. 

Believing  in  the  sense  of  thinking  only  is  incon- 
ceivable to  him.  That  is  why  religious  faith  with 
the  Russians  is  either  passionate  to  the  degree  of 
an  almost  aboriginal  fatalism,  or  it  is  absent  alto- 
gether. 

But  then,  we  have  two  words  for  truth :  prdvda  Two  words 

1  for '  truth.' 

implies  truth  as  applied  to  facts  themselves,  where- 
as Istina  rather  expresses  the  existence  of  truth  as 
of  an  abstract  idea.  For  instance,  the  English  for 
Pontius  Pilate's  query,  '  What  is  Truth  ?'  is  given 
in  Russian  not  by  means  of  the  word  prdvda,  but 
runs,  '  What  is  Istina  ? 

In  brief,  it  is  Istina  who  inhabits  the  bottom  of 
the  well,  and  not  pravda.  Therefore,  the  English 
expression,  'God's  Truth'  runs  in  Russian  Istin- 
naya  pravda,  the  first  of  the  nouns  being  tuined 
into  an  adjective;  but  one  could  not  possibly  say 
it  the  other  way  round  (pravdlraya  islina)  no  more 
than  you  would  say  '  truthful  God.'  * 


My  mind  wanders  to  one  more  definition  which ' 
is  lovable  to  a  Russian  mind,  but  which  would  be  ness. 

1  Mrs.  Edward  Garnet t,  whose  translations  approach  the 
Russian  originals  nearer  than  any  one  else's,  translates  istina 
now  '  truth,'  now  '  justice ' — and  it  is  not  her  fault  that 
the  subtle,  deep  distinction  between  these  English  words  and. 
the  istina  cannot  be  conveyed. 


100       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

ridiculous  in  translation  because  the  conception 
itself  is  strange  to  the  English.  The  word  means 
'  one  behind  the  soul '  (zadushevpy) — or  a  quality 
which  dwells  in  the  deepest  recesses  of  one's  spirit. 
Thus,  the  man  who  is  endowed  with  '  behind-the- 
soul  '-ness  is  very  deep  and  sympathetic,  and  at  the 
same  time  very  straightforward,  so  that  one  feels 
that  one  can  talk  to  such  a  man  as  one  would  talk 
to  oneself.  A  beautiful  example  of  this  nature  is 
'  The  Stranger  '  in  Mr.  Jerome  K.  Jerome's  Passing 
of  the  Third  Floor  Back.  A  conversation  in  itself 
between  fellow-thinkers  can  be  a  '  behind-the-soul  ' 
one;  also  a  voice,  or  a  manner  of  reciting  and  of 
acting.  The  last  two  must  be  of  the  '  behind-the- 
soul  '  quality  to  reach  a  Russian  listener's  heart. 
That  is  why,  again,  Mr.  Forbes  Robertson's  manner 
of  speaking  in  itself  appeals  to  us,  whilst  the  one 
of  the  late  Sir  Henry  Irving  seemed  to  us  painfully 
artificial  in  its  almost  intoned  monotony. 

We  call  our  best-beloved  friend  a  '  behind-the- 
soul  '  one.  .  .  . 

But  I  understand  that  the  best  friends  amongst 
the  English  people  seldom  like  to  share  between 
them  what  is  '  behind  their  souls,'  so  there  is  no 
wonder  that  the  English  speech  lacks  the  described 
definition. 

Yet  Mr.  Garstin  very  sympathetically  describes, 
in  his  little  book  The  Friendly  Russia,  how  often 
we  make  thorough  acquaintance  in  the  course  of 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE      101 

the  first  conversation  with  a  stranger  who  appeals 
to  us,  telling  and  asking  each  other  with  equal 
straightforwardness  dozens  of  things  of  a  personal 
nature.  The  lovable  personalities  of  Dostoyevski's 
Idiot  and  Al'osha  are  the  best  illustrations  of  a 
behind-the-soul  nature,  and  I  am  glad  to  notice 
that  they  appeal  to  the  most  interesting  and  edu- 
cated type  of  the  English  people.  The  General 
gladly  calls  the  Idiot  '  a  behind-the-soul '  man  in 
the  course  of  their  first  meeting,  when  the  young 
man,  not  at  all  reluctant,  tells  him  of  his  cherished 
principles.  (Mr.  Jerome's  Stranger  doesn't — but 
he  is  an  English  variety!) 

This  reminds  me  of  a  case  in  this  country  when 
a  young  English  fellow  made  the  whole  of  a  dainty 
party  at  dinner  roar  with  laughter  simply  by  telling 
them  how  a  casual  Irish  fellow-traveller  told  him  on 
the  route  between  Liverpool  and  Manchester  how 
many  children  he  had,  what  sort  of  children  they 
were,  how  splendid  his  wife  was,  how  much  he  made 
of  his  farm  and  what  were  the  items  of  that  par- 
ticular year,  what  he  thought  of  life  in  general,  etc. 
I  must  say  that,  although  the  vital,  outspoken 
Irishman  was  somewhat  simple  as  compared  to  the 
1  Idiot '  or  Al'osha,  my  Russian  sympathies  on  that 
occasion  were  entirely  with  him  who  was  neither 
shy  of  the  society  youngster,  nor  so  proud  as  to 
keep  to  himself  what  was  to  him  the  whole  meaning 
of  existence,  when  there  was  a  chance  of  conversa 


102  THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

tion  with  a  human  soul  instead  of  an  alien  silence 
in  the  course  of  a  whole  hour. 

The  soul  has  altogether  a  prominent  place  in  a 
Kussian  conversation.  It  is  one  of  our  terms  as  a 
friendly  form  of  address  (dusha  moyd).  Also,  if  any- 
thing suits  our  tastes  and  principles  exceptionally 
well,  we  say  that  it  is  po  duslie — i.e.,  '  alongside 
our  soul ' ;  whereas  everything  that  is  '  against  the 
grain  '  in  English  is  ne  po  dushe,  '  not  alongside 
our  soul '  in  Eussian. 

some  BUS-  The  above-mentioned  Irishman  was  just  the 
ings.  "  opposite  type  of  a  man  to  the  one  which  is  suggested 
by  the  graphic  Russian  saying  s'eb'e  na  um'e :  it 
gives  the  idea  of  a  miniature  of  Mr.  So-and-So 
sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  actual  Mr.  So-and-So's 
brain,  listening  to  it  attentively,  and  granting  or 
not  granting  egress  to  the  teeming  thoughts.  .  .  . 
Many  sayings  are  fine  in  that  rich  suggestiveness. 
One  of  them  I  heard  recently  from  a  Russian  who 
applied  it  to  the  manners  of  German  warfare:  '  If 
not  by  washing,  then  by  mangling  !'  Rather  good 
is  the  one  stating  that  '  There  is  enough  stupidity 
to  be  got  in  the  world  to  go  round  for  all  sage.'1 

Most  graphic  is  the  saying  used  by  the  peasantry 
TOO  indicate  a  state  of  absolute  safety :  to  convey  its 
meaning  I  must  first  say  that  our  peasants  and 
workmen  very  often  keep  their  money,  or  a  thick 
slice  of  bread  (krayuha)  for  the  next  meal,  or  alto- 

1  See  list  of  Russian  words  and  phrases. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       103 

gether  something  of  value,  next  to  their  skin, 
under  their  shirt.  This  place  of  safety  is  called 
'  za  pazuhoy,'  which,  in  itself,  is  untranslatable. 
Well,  then,  when  anyone  finds  himself  in  a  state 
where  there  is  no  grief  or  worry,  one  says  about 
him:  '  He  is  like  za  pazuhoy  with  the  Christ !' — i.e., 
as  if  Christ  kept  him  next  to  His  skin  !  .  .  . 

***** 
We  have  no  word  for  'slang';  we  simply  sayNo«sian?' 

J  in  Russian. 

'  the  speech  of  the  labourers,'  '  the  speech  of 
peasants,'  '  of  fishermen,'  '  of  tramps,'  '  of  old- 
believers,'  etc.  All  of  these  are  acknowledged 
and  admitted  by  the  writers,  because  the  '  slang  ' 
of  our  peasantry  is  often  most  wonderful,  both  in 
its  poignant  definitions  and  poetical  vein.  Some 
of  it  is  rude,  but  this  doesn't  make  us  discard  it 
altogether.  One  can  learn  beautiful  expressions 
from  our  simple  folk  who  create  them  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment. 

'  Pardon,'  says  Gogol',  suddenly  breaking  up  one 
of  his  humorous  descriptions :  '  words  seem  to  have 
escaped  our  hero  which  are  heard  only  in  the  streets. 
But  such  is  the  position  of  a  writer  in  Russia:  he 
is  bound  to  reflect  the  life  in  which  there  are  things 
not  tolerated  by  higher  society.  .  .  .'  Happily,  such 
is  the  position  of  a  Russian  writer — as  established 
by  Gogol'  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago  !  Whole 
stories  by  Gogol',  by  Shchedrin  and  L'eskov,  whole 
pages  by  Ostrovski  (our  Moliere),  by  Nekrasov, 


104       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Maxim  Gor'ki  and  Chehov,  whole  paragraphs  by 
Tolstoy  and  Dostoyevski — will  never  be  interpreted, 
even  if  they  are  seemingly  '  translated ' :  they  will  be 
like  an  even,  silvery  moonshine  as  compared  with 
a  crackling  bonfire  fragrant  with  burning  twigs  and 
sending  cascades  of  sparks  into  the  pitch  dark  quiet 
of  a  night.  The  same  can  be  applied  to  national 
wit  of  every  language  as  soon  as  it  has  a  local 
character:  Dickens,  Bret  Harte,  Kipling,  Jacobs 
have  no  more  chances  to  have  their  local  collo- 
quialism interpreted  irreproachably  into  another 
tongue  than  have  in  parallel  circumstances  L'eskov 
or  Gogol' ;  although  I  must  add  that  almost  every 
expression  the  sense  of  which  does  not  depend  on 
some  local  topic  easily  finds  its  equivalents  with  us, 
due  to  the  pliancy  and  freedom  of  our  language. 

For  instance,  the  bewitching,  subtle  humour  of 
The  Cricket  o)i  the  Hecvrth  sounds  beautiful 
when  rendered  in  Kussian.  All  the  warmth  in  it 
remains  intact,  yet  wholly  conveys  the  English 
atmosphere.  Very  few  expressions  in  it  are  un- 
translatable. This  applies  to  the  whole  of 
Dickens's  works  (even  his  Pickwick  Papers),  to 
Shakespeare,  Meredith,  Arnold  Bennett,  Jerome  K. 
Jerome,  Birmingham,  or  Oscar  Wilde.  This  does 
not  mean  that  all  Russian  translations  from  the 
English  are  excellent:  unfortunately,  with  the 
absence  of  literary  convention  between  our  coun- 
tries, too  many  Russians  who  do  not  possess  a 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       105 

perfect  knowledge  of  the  intricacies  of  English 
translate  and  publish  English  works.  But  what  I 
mean  is  that  the  atmosphere,  the  style  of  English 
speech — with  the  rare  exception  of  unique  col- 
loquialisms—  finds  its  equivalent  in  Russian  and 
can  be  translated  beautifully.  Whereas  it  is  just 
the  style,  that  something  essentially  Russian,  which 
cannot  be  expressed  in  any  other  tongue  owing  to 
the  lack  of  technical  mediums. 

Can  it  be  that  the  local  English  atmosphere  is 
conveyed  more  readily  to  our  minds,  and  that  the 
colloquial  English  is  more  easily  translated  into 
Russian  than  vice  versa — because  we  know  England 
better  than  the  English  people  know  Russia  ? 
We  have  studied  English  literature  so  long  (at 
school  and  ad  libitum)  that  English  characters  are 
not  strangers  to  us,  and  therefore  even  their  typical 
expressions  can  be  translated  literally — when  they 
happen  to  have  no  equivalents  in  our  character- 
speech;  they  do  not  baffle  or  alarm  us,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  make  the  English  types  stand  out  the 
more  clearly.  Whereas  it  is  quite  improbable  that 
an  average  English  reader  could  vividly  imagine 
the  surroundings  and  the  types  of  Gogol'  's  In- 
spector General  or  Gor'ki's  Childhood  !  How,  then, 
could  he  stand  a  close  translation  of  their 
speech  as  a  natural,  human  thing  ?  In  giving  to 
my  English  friends  the  exact  meaning  of  various 
Russian  manners  of  speech  throbbing  with  poign- 


106       THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

ancy  and  humour,  I  constantly  hear  the  intolerant 
remark:  '  Oh !  but  you  mustn't  say  that  in 
English  F 

S?lbieS~  I  am  tnankfril  to  see  that  the  anonymous  trans- 
names.  iator  has  tried  all '  permittable  '  English  to  convey 
Gogol'  's  humorous  style  in  Dead  Souls ;  but  in 
the  I/ispect^r  General  his  most  conscientious  en- 
deavours were  bound  to  fail.  The  names  alone, 
for  instance,  of  the  Governor  and  of  the  Judge  are 
to  every  Russian  mind  inseparable  from  their 
owners  who  have  been  living  characters  to  us  ever 
since  they  were  created.  Yet,  naturally  there  are 
blank  places  corresponding  to  them  in  the  English 
version.  The  chief  aim  of  my  book  is  an  attempt 
to  show  that  the  Russian  brain  works  along  differ- 
ent channels  from  the  English  one — and  its  manner 
of  doing  so — therefore  I  will  try  and  explain  the 
present  instance  technically,  as  it  were.  For  that 
purpose  my  patient  reader  will  have  to  return  to 
that  Russian  root  of  many  conceptions  which 
means  breath,  spirit — duk  (see  page  37).  Well, 
with  a  consonant  slipped  into  it,  this  noun  acquires 
a  comical  character:  dmuh  sounds  as  funny  as  duh 
sounds  serious  !  Gogol'  takes  this  dmuh  and  turns 
it  into  a  kind  of  adjectival  name:  Dmuhanovski. 
But  that  is  not  all:  he  brings  forward  the  wicked 
stupidity  of  the  big,  fat  old  Governor  by  doubling 
this  surname :  he  makes  it  Skvoznik-Dmuhanovski, 
which  means  '  A  draught  of  a  Dmuhanovski '  or 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIB  LANGUAGE       107 

'  a  -  draught  -  of  -  an  -  empty  -  headed  -  pooh  -  poohing  - 
bully.' 

No  wonder,  a  footnote  in  the  English  edition 
says  that  '  in  order  to  simplify  for  the  English 
readers  the  somewhat  formidable  caste,  the  sur- 
names of  the  first  eight  characters  are  omitted.' 
But  that  footnote  should  not  run  on  as  it  does, 
explaining — '  as  they  would  not  be  used  in  familiar 
intercourse.'  They  are  not  in  real  life,  that  is  true, 
but  Gogol'  's  characters  are  such  vivid,  living  per- 
sonifications that  the  beloved  classical  comedy,  In- 
spector General,  when  shorn  of  them,  is  unimagin- 
able and  ridiculous  !  The  translator  ought  to  try 
and  explain  them,  I  think.  But  anyhow,  as  he 
has  not  done  so,  I  must  try  my  best.  Therefore, 
a  few  more  lines  about  Gogol'  's  names : 

The  Judge  is  in  Kussian  Z'dpkin-T'dpkin;  the 
first  syllables  of  the  two  words  through  their  very 
sound  convey  to  the  Russian  mind  a  rude,  clumsy 
gesture  of  snapping  something  greedily.  Isn't 
this,  then,  a  splendid  name  for  a  provincial  Russian 
Judge  of  seventy  years  ago  who  swears  that 
he  takes  no  bribes  except  in  the  form  of  borzoy- 
puppies  ! 

Hl'estakov  himself  (the  young  and  silly  rascal 
taken,  from  fright,  for  the  official  Inspector)  means 
a  slashing,  swaggering  strut.  The  Warden  of  the 
Charity  Institutions  is  '  Strawberry ' — pure  and 
simple.  The  primitive  brute  of  a  policeman  is 


108       THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Eerjimorda,  wliicli  conveys  the  idea  of  '  Catch  hold 
of  his  dial '  (face)  !  and  indicates  the  simple  way  in 
which  the  representatives  of  public  order  used  to 
follow  out  their  duties.  Again,  the  simple-minded 
old  land  -  proprietress  in  Dead  Souls,  who  has 
upset  the  hero's  knavish  plans  entirely  through 
her  simplicity,  is  called  by  Gogol'  merely  Koro- 
bochka — which  means  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
'  a  little  box  ' ;  and  there  was  no  logical  need  to 
turn  her  in  the  English  version  into  a  '  Koroboch- 
kina.'  The  humour  vanishes  like  a  puit  of  smoke 
with  this  '  improvement '  on  the  original  name. 

***** 
The  most  characteristic  current  English  expres- 
sions often  lack  the  half-shades  of  colouring  neces- 
sary to  meet  the  demands  of  the  Russian  language. 
It  is  not  only  the  speech  of  the  lower  classes  that 
is  acknowledged  by  our  literature  to  its  fullest 
extent;  the  same  thing  has  been  done  by  the  above- 
named  English  writers  when  speaking  through 
their  characters;  the  difference  between  their 
writings  and  those  of  the  Russian  authors  lies  in 
the  fact  that  ours  enjoy  the  perfect  freedom  of 
Croatin?  applying  and  creating  expressions  when  speaking 
for  themselves.  Hundreds  of  these  would  not  pass 
in  England  as  '  good  style,'  because,  although 
Tennyson  and  Carroll,  amongst  others,  have  actu- 
ally invented  special  words  to  meet  emergencies, 
nevertheless  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       109 

special  twists  of  expressions  of  the  Eussian  language 
which  is  teeming  with  them  in  humour,  grief, 
poetic  feeling,  and  enthusiasm,  would  all  find  their 
equivalents  in  English;  nor  would  the  English 
translators  be  permitted  to  invent  any  equivalents 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment. 

With  us  the  power  of  graphic  rendering  is  an 
essential  quality  of  art.  Turgenev  managed  to 
command  it  without  being  exclusively  Russian  in 
his  style,  but  all  the  rest  of  our  writers  could  not 
help  being  so,  in  various  degrees.  They  are  given 
with  us  a  carte  blanche  for  creating,  as  it  were. 
Every  kind  of  definition,  every  new  word  is  allowed 
as  long  as  it  is  born  of  the  atmosphere  of  the  dis- 
cussed subject  and  is,  therefore,  natural  before 
everything  else.  It  is  the  natural  that  goes  home 
deepest,  after  all.  Recently  this  carte  blanche  has 
acquired  enormous  proportions.  Some  of  the  new 
words  and  expressions  startle  one  who  has  been 
brought  up  on  L'ermontov,  Turgenev,  Tolstoy, 
and  even  on  the  extra -richly-coloured  Gogol', 
L'eskov,  and  Shchedrln.  Some  of  these  new  words 
and  twists  of  expressions  will  fall  out;  but  many 
are  throbbing  with  real  new  power — for  they  are 
natural  outcome  of  a  free  and  creative  Slavonic 
mind  working  through  a  most  flexible  medium. 

It  is  not  considered  essential  that  each  new  word 
or  expression  should  be  of  a  sufficiently  universal 
importance  to  stand  the  test  of  time.  Any  amount 


110       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

of  words  have  been  created  by  Gogol',  Tolstoy, 
L'eskov,  Chehov,  Dostoyevski,  Gor'ki,  and  several 
writers  of  the  younger  generation,  for  a  special 
purpose — and  some  of  them  will,  perhaps,  never 
be  used  again;  but  they  are  just  splendid  in  their 
own  places  for  which  they  are  invented  !  They 
are,  naturally,  absent  from  the  dictionaries,  and 
the  translators  will  vainly  struggle  to  find  out 
their  meaning  and  to  see  their  essential  beauty. 

Since  1914  there  has  been  published  in  Petro- 
grad  a  formidable  periodical.  Each  volume  con- 
tains nothing  but  the  newest  prose  and  poetry 
distinctly  reflecting  the  searching  for  truth  (for 
istina,  in  this  case).  Bart  Kennedy  would  have 
had  a  chance  in  it  to  find  by  and  by  his  bit  of 
Truth,  instead  of  being  bovcotted  by  means  of 
mockery  and  laughter. 

The  periodical  is  called  S'ir'in,  the  Kussian 
equivalent  for  Bird  of  Wisdom.  It  welcomes  to 
its  pages  the  most  gloomy  satire  as  well  as  the  most 
mystic,  or  fantastic,  or  realistic  poetry.  As  to  its 
nationalism,  it  allows  the  quaintest  examples  of 
verses  that  ever  existed — being,  as  it  were,  cries  of 
the  old  Eussian  land,  frank  to  the  degree  of  primi- 
tiveness  and  uncanny  in  the  nature  of  their 
poetry.  I  hope  I  will  not  give  a  start  to  my  reader 
by  giving  one  of  them  (by  a  well-known  mystic 
woman-poet,  Zinaida  Gippius)  in  closely  follow- 
ing both  form  and  meaning: 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       111 

Russia  speaking  to  her  Singer.  A  charac- 

teristic 
I  have  pleased  thee  with  my  meadows  green,  poem. 

With  my  herbs,  and  tall,  white  hemlock, 

With  my  waving  corn  spreading  far  and  wide, 

With  the  golden  hearts  of  my  daisies ; 
Thou  mak'st  poems  of  them,  thou  sing'st  joyfully 

Of  my  playful  self — as  thou  lovest  me : 

But  who  will  love  my  ugly  wounds  ? 

Who  will  look  at  my  sins  ail-forgivingly  ? 
Come  ! — Love  also  the  evil  fogs 

That  rise  from  my  poisonous  stagnant  pools, 

Love  the  huge  weeds  alongside  my  walls, 

Love  my  poor,  drunken  peasant.  .  .  . 
But  if  fear  and  contempt  are  all  thou  find'st 

In  thy  heart  for  my  evils  so  painful — 

Then  go  !  Lose  thy  way  in  my  forests'  mists  ! 

Get  burnt  with  my  stinging-nettles  ! 
I  shall  not  lift  the  veil  from  my  face 

For  those  who  seek  me  the  beautiful  one, 

Who  can  not  love  me  to  bitter  end, 

Cannot  stand  me  the  ugly  one,  cannot  bear  me  the 
dirty  one.  .  .  . 

The  name  alone  of  this  periodical  indicates  the 
idea  that  the  most  ancient  in  the  artistic  tempera- 
ment is  not  a  hindrance,  but  a  help  in  the  search 
for  the  New.  The  name  of  the  bird  S'ir'in  is  equiva- 
lent to  an  Old  Slavonic  adjective  by  which  it  is 
often  replaced  and  which  means  '  the  one  knowing 
and  giving  out  the  Truth.' 

The  Old  Slavonic,  which  is  the  cradle  of  the  T,he  »«* 

played  by 

Eussian  language,   continues   to   exist  in   all  its 01? Slav- 
purity  and  is  absolutely  independent  as  our  lan- 
guage of  the  Church.     Every  Kussian  can  under- 


112       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

stand  it,  nevertheless,  even  without  learning. 
The  Bible  is  usually  printed  in  two  columns,  Old 
Slavonic  and  Russian,  and  one  gets  to  know  the 
first  of  them  quite  well,  even  without  being  a 
church-goer.  One  says  one's  prayers  in  it  in  early 
childhood  without  being  told  that  it  is  not  Russian : 
one  does  not  think  of  it,  somehow,  as  being  a 
language  in  itself,  and  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  state, 
as  it  has  been  stated  in  the  English  Press,  that  the 
Russians  don't  understand  the  language  of  their 
Church.  The  roots  of  the  words  are  in  an  over- 
whelming majority  the  same.  Just  in  the  same 
way  as  Modern  Russian,  the  Old  Slavonic  has  no 
grammatical  articles  whatever,  neither  the  nor  a. 
This  degree  of  simplicity  does  not  exist  in  any 
other  modern  European  language.  Slavonic  is  also 
free  of  auxiliary  verbs,  as  there  exists  the  same 
three  tenses  as  in  Russian,  and  the  only  gram- 
matical difference  is,  that  the  verb  'to  be '  is  used 
in  the  Slavonic  in  its  present  tense.  All  these 
similar  features  between  the  fountain-spring  of 
the  Russian  language  and  its  modern  form  also 
serve  as  links  of  close  kinship,  besides  the  simil- 
arity of  roots.  Altogether,  the  likeness  is  so  great 
that  simple-minded  church-goers  and  devoted 
Bible-readers  are  quite  unconscious  of  knowing, 
after  all,  two  languages.  To  them  the  ancient 
manner  of  speech  appears  to  be  simply  a  more 
'  heavenly  '  one  than  the  modern  !  In  my  child- 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       113 

hood  I  knew  a  very  old  great-granny  who  used  to 
shed  touching  tears  of  delight  when  the  boys 
would  purposely  read  to  her:  '  And  Judas  begat 
Phares  and  Zara  of  Thamar;  and  Phares  begat 
Esrom;  and  Esrom  begat  Aram;  and  Aram  begat 
Aminadab;  and  Aminadab  begat  Naasson;  and 
Naasson  begat  Salmon.  .  .  .'  '  Why  are  you  cry- 
ing, granny  ?'  they  would  ask  mischievously. 
'  It  is  so  heavenly !'  she  would  answer  with 
profound  joy.  The  Kussian  word  bojestvenno ! 
is  all  that  is  wanted  for  this  English  answer  and 
means,  literally — godly  !  The  highest  praise. 

A  great  many  genuine  Slavonic  words  are  in 
constant  use,  interwoven  with  the  Kussian  speech 
to  such  an  extent  that  they  only  intensify  the 
'  very  Russian  '  colouring  of  the  conversation  and 
literature.1  This  obviously  forms  an  additional 
difficulty  for  the  translators — I  mean  for  those  who 
know  our  language  sufficiently  to  realize  the  fact. 
This  fact  is  that  there  exists  but  one  French,  or 
English,  or  any  other  word  now  in  use  in  the  foreign 
languages  where  we  often  have  the  choice  between 
the  two  definitions  for  the  same  conception: 
Modern  Russian  and  Old  Russian  (or  Slavonic) 
being  equally  familiar  to  us.  And  of  these 

1  For  instance,  we  often  use  the  Old  Slavonic  instead  of  the 
Modern  Russian — without  thinking  of  its  being  Old  Slavonic — 
even  for  the  following  conceptions  having  absolutely  different 
roots  from  their  modern  equivalents:  the  eyes,  the  future,  because, 
call,  strength,  confession,  good,  fate,  wounds,  if,  depth,  shame, 

8 


114       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

two  it  is   the   second  that   carries   the  essentially 
Russian  spirit  with  it,  without  being  out  of  date. 

How,  then,  could  one  possibly  interpret  the  dif- 
ference between  a  purely  Modern  Kussian  speech 
and  the  one  which  is  intensified  by  the  use  of  the 
familiar  Slavonic  equivalents,  when  using  the 
current  Modern  English  only,  as  even  the  best  of 

now.  to  rest,  grief,  this,  lips,  kiss,  temptation,  other,  ceaseless, 
the  thought,  etc.,  etc. 

Here  are  the  parallel  columns  of  these  definitions,  in  order  to 
show  the  difference  between  their  aspect  in  the  modern  Russian 
and  the  ancient: 


English. 


Modern  Russian. 


Ancient. 


The  eyes. 

Glaza. 

Ochi. 

The  future. 
Because. 

Budushcheye. 
Potomuchto. 

Gr'adushcheye. 
Ibo. 

Call. 

Zov. 

Klich. 

Strength. 

S'ila. 

Moshch. 

Confession. 

Priznaniye. 

Ispov'ed'. 

Good. 

Dobr6. 

Blago. 

Fate. 

Sud'ba. 

Rok. 

Wounds. 

Rany. 

Yazvy. 

If. 

Yesl'i. 

K6H. 

Depth. 

Glub'ina. 

Puchina. 

Shame. 

Styd. 

Sram. 

Now. 

T'ep'er'. 

Nyn'e. 

To  rest. 

Otdyhat'. 

Pochivat'. 

Grief. 

Gdr'e. 

Skorb'. 

This. 

Eto. 

S'iye. 

Lips. 

Guby. 

Usta. 

Kiss. 
Temptation. 

Potzeluy. 
Iskusheniye. 

Lobzaniye. 
Soblazn. 

Other. 

Drugoy. 

Inoy. 

Ceaseless. 

Bezostanovochno. 

N'eustanno. 

The  thought. 

Duma. 

Mysl'. 

Flesh. 

T'elo. 

Plot'. 

Likeness. 

S-hodsto. 

Podob'iye. 

THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       115 

translators  do  ?  The  choice  which  is  at  our  disposal 
seems  not  to  be  at  theirs  !  Meanwhile,  remove 
just  that  very  Eussian  i  uance  de  genre  from  the 
pages  of  Dostoyevski,  Gogol',  L'eskov,  Chehov, 
Sl'eptzov,  Gor'ki,  Pushkin,  Tolstoy,  where  the 
tone  of  the  speaker  is  to  any  extent  elated,  or 
religiously-poetical,  or  sarcastic,  or  humorous— 
and  the  characterization  will  vanish. 

It  is  rather  a  puzzle  to  me  why  those  translators 
who  can  see  this  characterization  in  the  Russian 
originals  do  not  use  the  beautiful  Old  English  ex- 
pressions. Quite  a  quantity  of  them  serve  the 
purpose.  There  seem  to  be  ample  equivalents 
amongst  them  to  that  Old  Russian  style  of  speech 
which  we  instinctively  continue  using  when  we  feel 
'  very  Russian,'  and  fondly  describe  something  very 
Russian.  It  surprises  us  that  those  features  of 
the  Old  English  speech  which  should  be  a  parallel 
with  the  Old  Russian,  and  should  serve  for  parallel 
purposes,  seem  to  be  effete  in  modern  English  life; 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  English  insularity  and  self- 
respect  !  Do  the  translators  not  care  even  for 
those  equivalents  that  could  be  found  in  the  Old 
English  ?  Why  ?  Wouldn't  their  readers  under- 
stand them  ?  Or  is  it  because  they  cannot  them- 
selves see  the  difference  these  expressions  make  in 
the  Russian  original  ? 

Of  course,  I  mean  those  cases  where  an  essentially 
English  old  word  could  be  found  as  a  parallel.  In 


116       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

most  cases,  I  am  afraid,  they  would  not  correspond 
exactly;  but  perhaps  a  masterly  admixture  of 
Chaucer's,  Spenser's,  or  Shakespeare's  expressions 
might  at  least  in  some  cases  suggest  the  beautiful 
old  element  in  the  current  Eussian  language.  I 
even  heard  a  remark  from  a  well-educated  English 
person  that  the  Old  English  expressions  would 
make  the  speech  pedantic.  This  is  very  strange. 
With  us,  everything  Old  Russian  brings  with  it 
the  atmosphere  of  warmth  and  humour  and  caress, 
as  well  as  of  dignified  homeliness,  or  of  the  national 
heroic  spirit  reflected  in  the  folk-lore.  We  have  no 
The  keys  to  need  to  dream  any  '  Dreams  of  John  Ball  '  in  order  to 
talc,  child-  enjoy  the  beauties  of  the  olden  speech.  The  fountain- 


head  of  our  language  is  blended  with  its  steadily- 
increasing  modern  forms  in  perfect  harmony.  The 
language,  akove_ment;ioned  passion  for  the  searching  of  the 
new  in  the  realm  of  the  language  is  a  proof  of  this 
in  itself:  every  newly-introduced  Russian  word  is 
essentially  Russian,  i.e.,  always  founded  on  a 
familiar  old  root.  Thus  one  can  force  an  endless 
growth  of  the  Russian  language,  a  growth  by  expan- 
sion, without  necessarily  breaking  up  and  casting 
away  its  original  individuality.  The  genuine  age-old 
element  is  just  the  one  which  —  in  a  fairy-tale  way- 
keeps  the  artistic  Russian  nationalism  child-young. 

There  is  an  English  volume  of  translations 
of  our  wonder-tales.  The  translator,  Mr.  Post 
Wheeler,  has  rightly  called  them  wonder-tales: 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       117 

there  exist  no  fairies  in  the  mind  of  the  folk  who 
created  them,  and  all  the  wonderful  achievements 
narrated  in  those  tales  are  accomplished  by  human 
heroes,  peasants  or  princes — sometimes  aided  by  a 
fire-bird  or  a  frog  (transformed  '  Tsar-girls '). 
iiut  the  translator  never  mentions  in  his  preface 
what  difficulties  he  has  been  forced  to  contend 
with  !  Mr.  Kasso,  the  late  Kussian  Minister  of 
Education,  sent  him  a  letter  of  congratulation  on 
this  volume,  but  the  Russian  Ministers  of  Educa- 
tion have  seldom  taken  a  keen  interest  in  Russian 
enlightenment,  especially  in  the  Russian  peasant's 
unique  speech,  and  Mr.  Kasso  least  of  all  !  His 
letter,  published  next  to  the  preface,  carries  more 
weight  as  a  diplomatic  than  a  literary  document, 
for  Mr.  Post  Wheeler's  signature  is  followed  by, 
'  Secretary  of  the  American  Embassy  at  St.  Peters- 
burg.' This  letter  does  anything  but  minimize 
the  deplorable  fact  that  the  ancient,  genuine 
facon  dc  parler  of  the  Russian  tales  is  entirely 
lost  and  unrecognizable  in  the  English  version. 
This  is  inevitable,  and  could  not  be  helped.  But 
what  I  wish  to  point  out  is  the  obvious  indifference 
of  the  translator  towards  the  most  precious  part 
of  those  folk-lore  creations:  their  unique,  superb, 
Old  Russian  style  !  He  seems  to  be  quite  uncon- 
scious of  it;  otherwise  he  should  have  made  it 
clear  in  some  form  or  other. 

If    the   paintings   of   our   Vasnetzov,    Surikov, 


118       THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

An  ex-  Vrubel,  and  Nesterev  had  been  known  in  England, 
via  other  my  reader  would  be  able  to  understand  me  better 
from  a  parallel:  because  these  artists  give  in  their 
colours  and  in  their  compositions  that  same  un- 
translatable element  of  the  Slavonic  with  which 
the  characteristically-Russian  literary  style  is  teem- 
ing. Their  paintings  are  not  supernationul,  not 
generally-human.  Most  probably  their  meaning 
would  remain  hidden  from  the  mass  of  the  English 
public.  Yet  everyone  could  feel  in  them  that  some- 
thing which  is  their  spirit.  Bobbed  of  that  touch  of 
their  very  own  lines  and  colours,  the  greatest  paint- 
ings of  Vasnetzov  would  turn  into  nothingness. 

Being  unable  to  show  them  to  my  reader,  I 
would  like  to  point  out  to  him  the  Eussian  peasants' 
carved  wood  and  toys  as  the  next  typical  examples. 
These  are  rather  well  known  in  England  by  this 
time.  Well,  would  they  remain  '  Russian  '  if  you 
washed  away  from  the  woodwork  the  golden 
cupolas,  the  heads  of  hermits,  the  ancient  palaces 
built  of  logs,  the  rich  Byzantian  ornamentation, 
the  design  of  stars,  the  immense  hedges  and  weeny 
windows,  the  ancient  head-wear,  imposing  boyars, 
the  troyki,  the  folk-lore  subjects  ?  No.  The  whole 
industry,  so  rich  in  artistic  imagination  and  char- 
acter, would  vanish  if  anyone  had  the  power  to 
check  the  springs  of  its  inspiration.  The  genre 
would  disappear,  even  if  the  fir-trees  and  village 
roofs  half  buried  in  snow  and  the  modern  village- 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       119 

types  were  left  to  it.  Because  it  is,  again,  that 
age-old  element  which  is  an  inseparable  part  of 
the  Russian  art  and  which  lives  on  alongside  with 
the  newest  and  most  daring  in  it.  Those  who  had 
the  chance  of  seeing  the  Russian  ballet  and  opera 
at  the  Drury  Lane,  in  1914,  will  clearly  follow  the 
current  of  my  thoughts.  The  striking  blend  in 
both  colour  and  sounds  of  their  ancient  nature 
with  the  most  daring  New  is  the  keynote  of  that 
child-young  sincerity  and  is  its  fascination.  It  is 
obvious  to  those  who  have  seen  the  chords  of  colour 
and  heard  the  harmony  of  sound.  But  neither  of 
these  could  be  '  translated  ' !  The  Russian  speech 
deprived  of  its  fundamental  and  essentially  Russian 
element,  would  sound  the  same  as  '  Boris  Godunov  ' 
or  '  Petrushka,'  if  these  were  rendered  in  C  major 
from  beginning  to  end  ! 

A  simpler  illustration  would  be  an  Irishman's 
English  shorn  of  its  national  character.  Well,  the 
rich  colouring  of  the  Russian  literature  (not  sub- 
divided into  little  squares  of  '  slang  '  and  good 
style)  is  further  away  from  the  correct  English 
than  from  Pat's.  Thus  a  typical  Irish  story  would 
lose  less  by  its  translation  into  the  Russian  than 
by  being  retold  in  pure  English. 

***** 

Here  are  a  few  examples  of  interesting  deriva-  Some  sim- 

,.  i  •   i  ,,  ,  .  ,  Pie  deriva- 

tions which  are  at  the  same  time  very  simple.          tions. 

'  Work  '  in  English  is  an  independent  definition, 


120       THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

so  to  speak,  and  why  it  is  just  so,  and  nothing  else, 
no  one  can  explain — as  one  cannot  explain  the 
origin  of  thousands  of  words  in  any  language. 
But  in  Russian  work  is  rabota,  the  first  three  letters 
of  which  mean  serf.  This  does  not  point  to  a 
specially  industrious  spirit  in  our  ancestors  !  But 
most  likely  they  were  poetical  lovers  of  Nature 
before  everything  else;  and  when,  in  the  course  of 
their  development,  a  definition  for  work  had  to 
be  created,  it  appeared  in  this  strikingly  frank 
form.  ( Rob  =  serf ;  rabota = work ;  rabstvo = serfdom.) 
The  Russian  word  for  excitement  comes  from  the 
noun  wave  (vo?nd=wave;  volneniye = excitement). 
It  is  applied  to  the  high  seas  as  appropriately  as 
to  the  state  of  a  person  whose  voice,  expressions, 
looks  are  '  waving '  like  the  surface  of  a  rough  sea. 
This  noun,  volneniye,  has,  of  course,  a  correspond- 
ing verb,  which  literally  means  '  to  wave  oneself  ' 
(tioJnov&tsa).  Thus  when  we  want  to  say,  '  Don't 
get  excited !'  we  say  '  Don't  wave  yourself !' 
This  is  an  everyday,  simple  expression,  but  we 
use  it  without  the  mocking,  humorous  touch  of 
voice  which  so  often  goes  with  the  English  dis- 
approval of  excitement.  If  anything,  volneniye  is 
a  state  of  mind  which  attracts  sympathy.  And  we 
never  think  of  excitement,  either,  as  the  cause  of  a 
child's  '  liver  '  three  or  four  days  after  a  Christmas 
party  !  It  is  we  who  smile  here. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       121 

There  are  two  ways  of  saying  in  Russian,  '  I 
want  to.'  One  of  them  conveys  the  idea  of  con- ^fleeted  in 
scious  will  and  decision,  yd  hochu  =  l  will  (which 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  formation  of  the  future 
tense,  as  it  is  not  wanted  for  that  purpose); 
while  the  other,  with  the  personal  noun  in  the 
dative  (mn'e  in  the  place  of  ya)  is  expressed  by  the 
impersonal  form  of  the  verb:  mn'e  hochetsa.  The 
latter  form  of  saying  '  I  will '  conveys  a  vague 
desire  for  something,  as  if  commanded  by  some 
power  from  without,  and  even  the  dative  of  the 
personal  pronoun  is  usually  omitted:  Ne  hochetsa 
rabotat'  /=!  don't  want  to  work.  Hochetsa  otdoh- 
niit'  f=I  want  to  rest.  Spat'  hochetsa  != to  sleep  I 
want.  Hochetsa  molodost *i  ! = one  wants  to  be  youn g  ! 
(p.  42).  All  these  are  amongst  the  numerous 
everyday  expressions  when  we  subconsciously 
acknowledge  an  involuntary  desire,  as  it  were. 
Hochetsa  Vybv'i — one  longs  for  love — often  comes 
into  poems  and  songs. 

It  does  not  matter  which  of  the  two  aspects 
(personal  or  impersonal)  of  this  expression  you  use 
about  wanting  or  not  wanting  a  cup  of  tea,  or 
about  going  to  bed.  But  it  makes  a  difference 
whether  you  say  about  yourself,  Ya  hochu  jenitsa, 
or  Mn'e  hochetsa  jenitsa!  Both  mean  in  English 
that  you  want  to  be  married,  but  the  first  suggests 
that  the  choice  of  a  girl  has  already  been  settled, 
and  you  have  finally  decided  to  see  the  business 


122     THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

through;  while  hochetsa  jenitsa  means  generally 
that  you  are  tired  of  a  bachelor  life  and  you  would 
like  to  settle  down.  In  olden  days,  a  young  Rus 
sian  girl  living  in  strict  seclusion  and  seeing  no 
alternative  to  her  endless  embroidery  would 
wearily  murmur,  half -abashed  at  her  temerity: 
'  Zdmuj  *  hochetsa  /' 

The  author  of  the  Idiot  says  about  his  man  of 
society,  Totzki,  that  he  wanted  to  marry  well;  in 
this  case  the  impersonal  form  (in  the  past  tense: 
hot'elos')  is  applied  as  the  only  logical  one,  because 
the  man's  desire  was  a  general,  vague  idea  which 
took  hold  of  him. 

Altogether,  the  impersonal  form  of  the  verbs 
winds  its  way  throughout  the  language  and  pre- 
sents one  of  the  characteristic  points  of  the  Kussian 
manner  of  thinking ;  a  whole  volume  could  be  written 
about  our  verbs  alone ;  and  the  all-important  subtlety 
of  their  two  '  aspects  '  of  the  infinitive  greatly 
accounts  for  the  deficiency  of  most  translations. 
NO  com-  But  then  we  have  no  exact  expressions  for  the 
ever-present  English  verbs  '  to  like  '  and  '  to  mind.' 
I  must  acknowledge  that  here  the  palm  for  subtle 
differences  in  the  definition  of  degrees  of  feelings 
belongs  to  the  English  language.  I  can  offer  only 
one  explanation  of  this,  namely,  that  we  either 
love  a  person  or  a  thing,  or  we  don't.  There  isn't 
much  room  for  compromise  in  the  Russian  heart, 

1  Pages  85  and  86. 


THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       123 

and  the  only  alternative  is  '  this  pleases  me,'  as  in 
French,  which  is  rather  a  different  thing.  The 
English  language  can  claim  the  verb  '  to  like  '  in 
its  entirety. 

A  very  good  example  of  no  compromise  in  the 
Russian  taste  is  the  absence  in  our  language  of  the 
eternal  English  answer,  '  I  don't  mind.'  To  mind 
is  in  itself  a  very  English,  a  very  mild  and  civilized 
way  of  remonstrating;  and  the  not  minding  is 
essentially  so  in  consenting  to  something.  There 
is  no  vivid  wholeheartedness  about  it,  and  we  very 
often  stop  and  think  after  such  an  answer:  *  But 
does  he  (or  she)  really  approve  of  it  ? '  A  few  months 
of  life  in  England  are  necessary  to  put  a  stamp  of 
English  manners  upon  us,  and  then  we  say  a  hun- 
dred times  a  day,  in  quite  an  English  intonation: 
'  I  don't  mind.' 

Only  I  reserve  to  myself  the  right  of  doubting 
whether  many  of  us  really  begin  to  feel  in  this  half 
and  half  way.  In  expressions  and  intonations  we 
get  acclimatized  very  quickly,  that's  very  true;  but 
in  our  innermost,  inherent  attitude  towards  things 
it  is  not  so  easy  to  have  one's  nature  rolled  out 
smoothly.  There  is  a  risk  of  being  impolite  ?  .  .  . 
Oh,  yes,  very  often  so.  Lack  of  politeness  is  the 
natural  result  of  feeling  wholly  one  way  or  the 
other.  That  is  why  there  is  such  a  lot  of  arguing 
and  debating  going  on  in  Russia.  If  I  may  touch 
on  the  seriousness  of  to-day,  there  were  very  few 


124       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

advanced  people  hitherto  in  our  country  who 
'  didn't  mind  '  things  as  they  were — and  there 
are  none  now.  The  not  minding  and  not  caring 
has  never  existed  before,  nor  has  this  indifferent 
state  so  far  appeared.  But  people  of  enlightened 
views  and  Opposition  parties  have,  for  the  time 
being,  left  behind  their  opinions,  habits,  and 
fashions,  as  soon  as  they  realized  that  by  retain- 
ing them  they  would  impede  the  nation's  achieve- 
ments. 

No,  the  polite  and  lukewarm  indifference  will 
never  become  a  national  Mature  of  the  land  of  the 
Eussians.  They  do  mind  and  they  do  care — very 
much  so,  although  they  appear  to  be  able  to  put 
their  personal  feelings  on  one  side  while  their 
country's  freedom  is  at  stake. 

***** 
An  every-       With  this  Slavonic  capacity  of  yielding  oneself 

day  capa- 
city, wholly  to  one's  ideas  and  emotions,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising to  find  an  everyday  Russian  definition  very 
seldom  used  in  England;  here  people  are  more  con- 
servative and  refuse  to  be  swept  off  their  feet— 
which,  at  times,  must  be  more  effective  in  the  long 
run  than  a  hearty  yielding  to  that  fascinating  sensa- 
tion I  This  definition  is  uvlecheniye,1  and  it  means 
'  the  state  of  being  carried  or  swept  away  ' ;  the 
verb  is  uvlekatsa,  and  means  the  action  of  carrying 
oneself  away.  Living  amongst  Russians  one  per- 

1  Mentioned  before,  p.  73. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       125 

petually  hears  that  someone  is  being  carried  away, 
and  you  would  see  proofs  of  this  with  your  own 
eyes.  You  would  see  people  glued  to  their  work, 
which  they  are  not  in  the  least  bound  to  do — not 
merely  for  hours,  but  day  and  night  for  many 
months  on  end.  That  is  why  Kussians  wear 
themselves  out  physically  much  sooner  than  the 
British.  It  is  as  though  the  sap  of  life  were  with- 
drawn from  the  Russian  body  to  feed  the  emotions, 
whereas  with  the  British  the  reverse  is  often  the 
case.  With  us  there  are  no  persons  of  fifty  and 
upwards  presenting  that  healthy,  glowing,  youth- 
ful appearance  which  one  constantly  meets  in 
people  of  a  corresponding  age  in  these  isles.  Dos- 
toyevski  and  Gogol'  used  to  work  in  that  exhaust- 
ing Russian  manner.  It  results  in  great,  inspired 
work,  but  it  certainly  also  mows  down  and  carries 
those  people  away  too  far  and  too  early  ! 

You  would  hear  that  someone  is  carried  away 
by  this  or  that  philosophy  or  system — and  you 
would  have  to  endure  the  result  of  it  each  time  he 
meets  you ;  another  by  his  passion  for  enlightening 
the  masses,  and  then  you  may  be  sure  that  that 
person  will  not  leave  alone  any  servant,  or  work- 
man, or  peasant  he  comes  across  for  the  first  time. 
Yet  another  is  carried  away  with  the  arts — the 
drama  above  all — and  these  number  legion.  Again 
you  will  constantly  hear  a  good-natured  statement 
that  So-and-So  is  carried  away  by  So-and-So, 


126     THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

which,  needless  to  say,  no  one  regards  as  humili- 
ating. It  is  a  tribute  to  any  artist,  musician,  or 
social  worker  to  say  that  he  or  she  is  painting, 
playing,  singing,  or  working  with  uvlecheniye;  be- 
cause everyone  who  is  spontaneously  swept  away 
by  his  work  is  sure  to  sweep  others  along  with  him. 
The  nearest  to  it  in  English  is  abandonment, 
but  the  Russian  uvlecheniye  does  not  include  any 
suggestion  of  the  unpleasant  side  of  abandon- 
ment. 

If  you  feel  that  you  are  being  carried  away  by  a 
marriageable  person  of  the  opposite  sex,  you  can 
safely  tell  him  or  her,  '  You  are  carrying  me 
away!' — Vy  m'en'd  uvlelcayefe!  This  will  sound 
lovable  if  you  are  sincere,  but  it  will  not  give 
the  other  party  an  opportunity  of  beginning  to 
weave  a  network  of  matrimonial  schemes.  We 
possess  no  Breach  of  Promise  Act,  and  we  would 
never  think  of  passing  such  a  law.  It  makes 
Russian  people  roar  with  laughter,  or  thunder 
with  indignation,  when  they  read  instances  of  it 
in  English  books  or  daily  press. 

*  *  *  #  * 

•Baba'—       There  is  a  Russian  word  baba,  which  is  usually 

RSn     translated  into  English  as  countrywoman.    This 

cjmcep-      jg   par^an;y   right,    but    not    altogether.      Every 

countrywoman  is  a  baba,  it  is  true,  and  is  called 

so  without  the   least   disrespect,  in  spite  of  the 

touch  of  contempt  it  originally  implied,  and  which 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       127 

can  be  revived  when  occasion  requires.  Now- 
adays, the  peasant  says  in  highest  praise: 
'  Molodetz1  baba  !  Boy  baba  !'— '  boy  '  literally 
meaning  a  fight,  a  battle — which  is  an  obvious 
proof  that  the  Eussian  peasant  rather  admires 
vigour  and  strength  in  his  mate.  But  the  original 
shade  of  contempt  is  distinctly  conveyed  by  the 
same  word,  baba,  if  you  choose  to  apply  it  to  that 
special  purpose.  Both  men  and  women  of  the 
educated  classes  will  use  it  when  mentioning  some 
gossiping  woman  or  a  company  of  plain  females 
exclusively  absorbed  in  the  sex  attraction;  and 
then  the  denomination  baba  fully  implies  con- 
tempt for  the  hackneyed  prerogative  of  woman. 
Probably  due  to  the  English  horror  of  slang  in 
literature,  even  this  tone,  when  suggesting  first 
and  foremost  the  sexual  element,  is  invariably 
neglected  and  replaced  by  the  respectable  defini- 
tion '  countrywoman,'  whereas  female  would  be 
very  often  nearer  the  mark.  '  Countrywoman ' 
emphasizes  class  distinction  rather  than  sex,  where- 
as, in  the  original,  the  word  baba  embraces  both 
at  will.  I  want  to  point  it  out  again  that  in  speak- 
ing about  countrywomen,  the  word  baba  suggests 
nothing  but  a  natural  wholesome  idea  of  the  sex — 
as  the  word  grandmother  in  Eussian,  babushka 
(derived  direct  from  baba),  shows.  No  one  says  in 
Eussian  '  mujiki  and  countrywomen,'  but  '  mujikl 

1  See  p.  42. 


128       THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

and  baby  ?1  Yet  baba  directly  suggests  the  idea  of 
sex  in  a  more  pointed  way  than  jenshchina  (woman) 
does,  when  the  distinction  is  all-important.  Thus, 
trying  to  guess  the  sex  of  the  dirty,  stingy  old  person 
wrapped  up  in  rags,  the  hero  of  Gogol  "s  Dead 
Souls  repeats  to  himself,  '  Oy,  mujik !  Oy,  baba !' 
—the  exclamation  oy  conveying  much  wonder. 
An  An  historical  anecdote  will  further  illustrate  the 

historical 

anecdote,  word  baba  when  it  means  accentuating  the  dis- 
tinction of  sex.  When  Catherine  II.  usurped  her 
husband's  throne  on  the  momentous  night  in  1762, 
the  men  in  one  of  the  regiments  stationed  in  Peters- 
burg declared  that  they  would  not  swear  allegiance. 
Their  officers  vainly  tried  to  persuade  them. 

'  We  won't — we  shan't !'  they  shouted. 

'  But  why  ?' 

'  Because  she  is  a  baba  !' 

A  very  energetic  colonel  appeared  quickly  to 
put  the  matter  straight. 

'  You  won't  swear  allegiance  to  our  Mother- 
Empress  ?' 

'  No-o  !' 

'  Why  ?' 

'  Because  she  is  a  baba  !  We  won't  serve  a 
baba  !' 

1  In  plural.  Please  don't  for  a  second  imagine  that  this 
word  sounds  as  an  English  '  baby '  does  !  Eemember  the 
Italian  a  and  the  dark  Eussian  vowel  for  which  y  stands  only 
as  a  symbol.  (See  Introduction.) 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       129 

'  Won't  you  ?'  and  the  energetic  man  of  the  hour 
briskly  walked  up  to  the  men  and  proceeded  to 
box  the  ears  of  each  man.  As  he  continued  this 
steadily,  the  men  gradually  fell  in,  the  noise 
stopped,  and  the  hands  went  up  to  salute;  but 
he  continued  until  he  was  tired. 

'  Well  ?'   his   panting   voice   thundered     again, 
'  won't  you  swear  allegiance  to  our  Empress  now  T 
'  We  shall— we  will !' 

'  Why,  you  fools,1  then  why  didn't  you  want 
to  before  ?' 

'  Because,'  they  cried  unanimously,  '  no  one  had 
explained  it  to  us  properly  !' 

Certainly  the  expression  'to  explain  properly' 
would  not  be  applied  in  this  sense  by  any  soldier 
nowadays;  but  the  word  baba  certainly  would. 
Obviously  it  was  not  used  in  order  to  call  Catherine 
a  countrywoman — but  with  the  distinct  intention 
of  expressing  contempt  for  her  sex. 

This  characteristic  of  the  word  baba  is  clearly 
reflected  in  the  critical  saying,  '  Quite  po-babyi  /' 
Men  use  it  at  the  sight  of  women's  wiles  to  which 
they  (men)  'would  never  resort'  themselves: 
tears,  coaxing,  proverbial  cunning,  etc. 

Altogether  it  seems  to  me  that  the  word  baby 
for  the  Russian  peasant  women  deserves  exactly 
the  same  popularity  as  the  word  mujikl  has  already 

1  In  this  case  the  word  for  fools,  duraki,  was  surely  applied 
in  its  intensified  form,  durachyo,  which  conveys  boundless 
contempt.  9 


130       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

won.  This  would,  perhaps,  also  help  in  sketching 
the  mental  picture  of  a  Russian  peasant  woman  as 
being  so  different  from  an  English  one:  she  does 
not  possess  or  dust  a  mantelpiece;  she  does  not 
make  dainty  little  cakes  with  baking-powder  at 
five  minutes'  notice,  for  there  is  no  baking-powder 
in  Russia  and  she  kneads  her  yeast-made  black 
bread  thrice  the  night  before;  she  does  not 
'  change  '  in  the  afternoon,  and  does  not  walk 
about  till  then  with  paper  curlers  sticking  from 
her  head  like  a  porcupine  in  utter  ignorance  of  her 
ugliness.  (If  a  Russian  baba  should  encounter 
such  an  apparition,  she  would  be  likely  to  stop 
short  in  amazement  and  to  cross  herself  for  safety.) 
She  often  lives  through  her  life  without  knowing  of 
a  hat  or  a  corset,  or  even  of  other  underwear;  very 
often  goes  about  barefooted.  But  she  vigorously 
cleanses  herself  with  boiling-hot  water  and  steam 
each  week  in  the  village  public  bdn'a,  as  every 
moujlk  does;1  neither  of  them  would  call  an 
English  bedroom-bath  anything  but  a  saucer;  she 
makes  her  own  linen  chemises  from  the  home- 
grown flax;  she  embroiders  all  her  table-cloths  and 

'  A-ah  !  Nice  !  .  .  .  Now  we  feel  Russia  heart  and  soul 
with  us  !  .  .  .'  say  the  Russian  soldiers  as  they  emerge  from 
the  bath-trains  behind  the  trenches.  An  hour  weekly  in  the 
hot  steam  of  a  ban'a  (Turkish  bath-house)  is  the  same  as  daily 
bread  to  a  Russian  moujik.  ...  '  We  now  feel  Russia  behind 
us  !'  .  .  .  By  the  way,  the  ban'a  is  an  ancient  genuine 
Russian  institution,  not  at  all  introduced  by  the  Turks, 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       131 

towels,  to  say  nothing  of  chemises  and  shirts;  and 
she  looks  after  the  cattle  and  works  in  the  fields 
with  the  strength  and  vigour  of  an  unsophisticated 
aboriginal.  This  work  is  a  matter  of  course  to 
her,  side  by  side  with  man. 

That  is  what  a  baba  is — versus  the  probably 
wrong  vision  of  an  English  reader  who  is  likely 
to  imagine  a  Russian  countrywoman  wearing  a 
'  best  hat '  and  corsets.  On  a  Sunday  she  looks 
very  trim  and  bright  without  possessing  these, 
and  spends,  if  possible,  her  Sunday  afternoon  and 
evening  in  sociable  merry-making,  often  with  a 
touch  of  art  in  her  uvlecheniye. 

Each  of  the  two  types,  if  they  met,  would 
mutually  regard  each  other  with  compassionate 
contempt. 

*  *  *  *  4 

The  English  reader  will  be  surprised  to  learn  TWO  im- 
that  the  universally-known  expression,  '  Ivan  the  finitions 
Terrible,'  for  Ivan  Grozny,  is  not  correct.     Being  translated, 
an  epithet  meant  for  a  special  definition  of  a  Tsar's 
personality — and  one  of  Ivan's  nature,  too  ! — it 
would  be  surely  translated  correctly  if  there  existed 
an  equivalent  for  it.     But  grozny  is  just  one  of 
those  Old  Russian  terms  which  seem  to  have  no 
equivalents  in   the   West.    There   is   a   different 
word  which  stands  exactly  for  '  terrible  '  with  us 
(ujasny).       But   grozny   is   an   adjective   derived 
directly  from  the  nouns  '  thunder-storm  '  (gr^za) 


132       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

and  'thunder'  (grom)\  not  simply  'storm,'  for 
which  we  have  several  other  nouns,  but  exactly 
thunder-storm.  Thus  grozny  carries  a  more  pic- 
turesque idea  with  it  than  '  terrible.'  We  apply 
the  term  grozny  for  everything  that  is  silently 
dark  and  menacing  and  frowning,  like  the  advance 
of  a  thunder-storm  when  you  don't  know  whether 
it  will  leave  you  alive  or  not.  If  William  the 
Silent  were  a  Kussian  Tsar'  he  would  be  probably 
called  Grozny.  With  the  additional  syllable  of 
nuance  po  which  gives  a  touch  of  finish  to  the  idea, 
the  same  root  makes  the  world-renowned  word 
pogrom  ;  another  twist — and  it  is  transformed  into 
'  fulminating  mercury,'  one  of  the  most  terrible 
explosive  substances  known  (gremuchaya  rtut'). 

Equally  untranslated  by  the  historians  and 
grammarians  remains  the  term  applied  by  us  to 
the  times  of  Dmitri  and  his  few  successors.  In 
English  this  period  of  the  Russian  history  is  mostly 
called  '  The  Stormy  Times.'  But  with  us  it  is  not 
'  stormy  ':  the  idea  of  our  adjective  in  this  case  is 
the  same  which  we  apply  to  the  state  of  water 
when  something  has  rendered  it  turbid;  or  to  the 
outlines  of  a  landscape  made  undistinguishable  by 
mist;  or  to  an  unaccountable  feeling  of  foreboding. 
.  .  .  There  is  an  element  of  heavily-weighing 
unaccountability  in  that  adjective  (smutny)  which 
is  absent  in  its  translations. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE      133 
In  Russian  a  special  twist  is  given  to  some  nouns  special 

twists  to 

through  the  addition  of  the  termination  shchina.  the  nouns. 
It  implies  the  whole  atmosphere  of  ideas,  feelings, 
and  actions  which  have  grown  around  a  certain 
person,  or  a  set  of  people,  which  forms  its  original 
centre,  as  it  were.  It  is  parallel  to  the  Western 
1  ism/  e.g.,  Sheridanism,  Voltairianism,  Bismarck- 
ism,  etc.  So  Biionovshchina  stands  for  the  most 
cruel  officialdom,  such  as  Biron,  the  German 
favourite  of  the  Tsaritsa  Anna  (1730-1740),  first 
introduced  in  Russia ;  Hovanshchina  is  more  or  less 
known  in  England  as  the  title  of  the  beautiful 
opera  given  in  Drury  Lane  in  1914,  in  which  the 
whole  world  surrounding  the  Prince  Hovanski 
forms  the  plot  of  the  drama.  Dostoyevshchina 
would  be  easily  understood  by  every  Russian, 
although  it  has  just  occurred  to  me  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment:  every  student  of  Russian  literature 
will  realize  that  I  mean  the  everlasting  exaltation 
of  suffering  or  of  love,  and  the  eternally  throbbing 
nerves  of  Dostoyevski  himself  and  of  all  his  char- 
acters, with  which  they  intensify  the  weight  of 
every  moment,  of  every  passing  word  or  thought. . . . 
Sometimes  the  all-embracing  quality  of  the  end- 
ing shchina  is  attached  not  to  a  person,  yet  keeps 
its  power  of  giving  a  bold  character  sketch — and 
that  is  where  it  is  particularly  popular  and 
graphic :  so,  Dostoyevski  himself  constantly  uses  in 
the  Brothers  Karamdzov  the  word  ugolovslicliina  : 


134       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Mrs.  Constance  Garnett  translates  it  by  '  crime  '- 
the  only  way  it  can  be  translated  approaching  the 
original;  but,  being  an  excellent  student  of  both 
languages,  she  is  sure  to  know  what  I  am  going  to 
say  here,  namely:  that  crime  in  Eussian  is  quite 
another  word,  prestupleniye ;  but  that  Dostoyev- 
ski  uses  ugolovshchina  purposely,  as  a  word  con- 
veying a  much  stronger  flavour  of  something  gross 
about  it.  Every  crime  is  prestuplenie,  whereas 
ugolovnoye  prestupleniye  means  specially  a  crime  of 
homicide,  and  the  courts  dealing  with  it  are  called 
ugolovny  sud  (the  root  of  the  word,  gol  ,va,  means 
head).  Now  this  adjective,  ugolovny,  is  twisted 
by  Dostoyevski  into  a  noun  by  the  special  termin- 
ation, \igo\ovshchina,  on  purpose  to  suggest  the 
whole  gross  atmosphere  of  Karamazov's  crime. 
'  .  .  .  There  is  the  scent  of  ugolovshchina  about 
it '  is  an  expression  used  not  only  by  Dostoyevski' s 
characters,  but  often  heard  in  the  practice  of  the 
judicial  circles  when  a  guess  at  some  appalling 
criminal  affair  is  made. 

A  quite  familiar,  everyday  word  with  us  is 
kaz'onshchina,  which  conveys  our  scorn  of  official 
routine.  The  root  of  this  word  is  kazna,  and  means 
Government  funds;  the  adjective  from  it,  ka- 
z'onny,  means  everything  belonging  to  the  Govern- 
ment, and  is  applied  to  service  in  civil  or  military 
circles,  to  schools  and  institutions,  to  buildings  and 
all  sorts  of  property  belonging  to  the  Government; 


THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       135 

officials  live  in  a  kaz'onnaya  kvartlra;  there  is  a 
whole  ocean  of  kaz'onnoye  ink  and  paper  used  in 
the  offices;  a  soldier  wears  kaz'onnyie  boots  and 
clothes,  etc.  But,  due  to  Russia's  past  history, 
this  adjective  has  acquired  a  distinct  meaning  of 
dryness  and  stiffness,  and  therefore  is  used  with 
irony  or  sarcasm  as  an  epithet  directly  defining 
these  qualities.  Thus,  a  Russian  peasant  speaking 
of  some  official  who  refused  to  listen  to  his  requests 
or  explanations,  will  wave  his  hand  and  say: 
'  Kaz'onnaya  dusha  !' — thus  implying  that  he  gives 
up  hope,  because  what  can  be  expected  from  a  man 
whose  soul  (dusha)  is  not  his  own,  as  it  were,  but 
merely  an  appendage  of  the  Government  ?  .  .  .  Or, 
a  style  of  writing  devoid  of  vivacity  and  freedom  is 
universally  called  kaz'onny  stiF.  Again,  Russian 
schoolboys — people  possessing  the  strongest  diges- 
tion in  the  world  ! — are  often  laughingly  spoken  of 
amongst  themselves  and  by  their  elders  as  having 
'  kaz'onnyie '  stomachs:  nothing  can  possibly  upset 
them. 

This  characteristic  of  immovable  stiffness  is 
still  further  accentuated  by  the  ending  discussed 
above,  which  turns  it  into  a  noun  —  kaz'on- 
shchina.  This  is  the  word  which  the  old  cynic 
Karamazov  uses  in  speaking  of  the  monastic  life, 
and  which  is  translated  merely  as  routine  or  con- 
vention. The  poignant,  flippant  flavour  is  all  gone 
from  the  original  word.  I  repeat,  this  is  not  the 


136      THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

fault  of  the  translator  in  this  and  similar  cases, 
but  the  impossibility  in  other  languages  of  making 
all  these  telling,  all-important  twists. 

Very  interesting  is  the  fact  that  various  term- 
inations used  ad  libitum  for  nouns,  adjectives,  and 
even  other  parts  of  speech,  not  only  carry  very  dis- 
tinctly different  shades  of  meaning,  but  suggest 
the  attitude  of  the  speaker,  indicating  the  various 
tones  of  voice  in  which  all  these  definitions  would 
be  uttered.  For  instance : 

The  expression  of  old  Karamazov,  '  Jidy,  Jidkl, 
Jid'lshki,  and  Jid'en'ata,'  does  not  mean  '  Jews, 
Jewesses,  and  Jewkins,'  as  it  is  translated:  they 
convey,  through  this  assortment  of  terminations, 
nothing  but  the  speaker's  contemptuous  attitude 
to  the  Jews,  whilst  their  wives  and  children  are  not 
implied  at  all.  It  would  be  nearer  the  tone  of  the 
original  to  translate  it  '  all  sorts  of  dirty,  wretched 
Jews.'  True,  Jiden'ata  is  often  used  for  defining 
Jewish  youngsters;  but,  along  with  the  other 
diminutives,  this  word  stands  here  solely  to  under- 
line Karamazov's  tone  of  contempt,  and  this  is 
clear  from  the  next  phrase  in  the  original,  in  which 
Karamazov  says,  as  an  antithesis :  '  but  I  ended 
by  being  received  by  Hebrews.'  Mrs.  Constance 
Garnett  translates  this :  '  received  by  Jews  high 
and  low  alike.'  But  in  this  paragraph  she  has 
not  understood  the  original  (an  exceptional  case). 
May  I  explain  that  it  carries  distinctly  all  the  differ- 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       137 

ence  which,  in  Kussia,  rests  with  the  choice  be- 
tween the  words  Jew  and  Hebrew.  Strangely 
enough,  in  other  languages,  even  in  Yiddish  itself, 
the  people  of  that  race  are  called  Jews,  and  they 
accept  it  as  a  matter  of  course;  but  in  Russia  the 
Jews  are  bitterly  offended  when  they  are  so  called 
(Jidy).  In  fact,  no  one  does  it,  except  with  in- 
tentional insult.  One  takes  great  care  not  even 
to  pronounce  this  name  (even  in  the  form  of  an 
adjective)  in  the  presence  of  Jews  at  all:  it  must 
be  Hebrew  (Yevrey).  Thus,  saying  that  his  busi- 
ness ended  by  his  acquaintance  with  Hebrews, 
whilst  it  began  with  Jidlshki  and  Jid'en'ata,  old 
Karamazov  obviously  uses  the  selection  of  con- 
temptuous terminations  with  the  purpose  of  dis- 
tinguishing the  Jidki  from  Hebrews,  whom  he 
thus  classifies  as  a  better  type  and  is  prepared  to 
respect. 

That  same  attitude  of  the  speaker  towards  the 
object  winds  its  way  throughout  the  numberless 
endings  expressing,  ad  libitum,  love,  contempt, 
fear,  respect,  etc.  The  old  cynic  Karamazov  him- 
self is  called  by  his  philosophical  son  Ivan  a 
1  st&iishishka ' — a  twist  of  the  word  for  old  man 
which  breathes  of  nothing  but  disgust;  while 
starch  is  used  by  everybody  as  a  term  of  profound 
respect  for  the  other  old  man  in  the  book,  Zoslma, 
although  both  forms  of  the  word  come  from,  and 
mean,  old  man. 


138      THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

In  the  Western  world  one  does  not  meet  with 
characters  like   Al'osha,   Zoslma,    '  Idiot/  Platon 
Karavayev,    Tsar'     Feodor    loanovich,     Gor'ki's 
'  Granny,'   Son  'a   Marmeladova,   and    other  such 
outstanding  characters  in  Kussian  literature  and 
Tender-     history.     Naturally  enough,  the  style  of  language 
love  wind-  surrounding  these  types  can  be  nothing  else  but 
way         essentially    Russian.     They    are    living    embodi- 


ments  of  utterly  selfless  love,  and  therefore  the 
language.  ^^  wor^  of  their  language  and  of  the  lan- 
guage surrounding  them  —  the  Russian  language 
of  love  —  is  unimaginable  and  non-existent  in  any 
other  language.  It  is  essentially  Russian  in  many 
features.  To  begin  with  its  terms  of  endear- 
ment, for  instance:  my  falcon  bright,  my  bright 
light,  my  red  sun,  my  rodnoy  (see  p.  59),  etc. 
But  this  is  far  from  being  all;  the  order  of 
the  words  itself  commands  various  degrees  of 
'  caressiveness  '  —  the  latter  in  itself  being  a  char- 
acteristic feature,  without  which  the  Russians 
could  not  live.  To  return  to  the  order  of  the 
words,  '  my  dear  boy  '  in  Russian  carries  with  it 
considerably  less  '  caressiveness  '  than  '  boy  thou 
mine  dear  '!  It  sounds  ugly  in  English,  but  beau- 
tiful in  Russian.  It  is  placed  by  Dostoyevski  in 
the  mouth  of  Zosima  when  addressing  Al'osha, 
and  is  inevitably  translated  in  the  only  one  correct 
English  way. 
There  is  a  passionate  love  for  the  soul  of  Nature 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       139 

and  soul  of  Man  which  radiates  human  warmth 
and  sympathy  winding  its  way  throughout  the 
whole  of  Russian  literature :  through  Tolstoy's  and 
Dostoyevski's  classical  characters  in  prose,  through 
Nekrasov's  poetry,  Ostrovski's  drama  and  comedy, 
through  the  modest  types  of  Chehov  and  Gor'ki. 
In  one  of  his  brief  sketches,  Chehov  brings  out  a 
vivid  figure  of  a  quiet  monk  who  takes  people 
across  a  ferry  to  his  monastery  for  the  Easter 
midnight  service:  he  is  in  an  ecstasy  of  love  and 
worship.  Being  also  a  born  literary  artist,  he 
speaks  of  the  subtle  beauties  of  expression  to  be 
found  in  the  Old  Slavonic  psalms ;  he  mentions  the 
Akaphist  to  the  Virgin,  and  says :  '  The  shortest 
line  addressed  to  her  should  breathe  of  sunshine 
and  wind,  of  the  beauty  of  God's  thunder-storms 
and  of  the  little  field  flowers.  .  .  .' 

Diminutive  forms  more  than  often  do  not  mean 
'  little  '  at  all,  but  suggest  something  else  charac- 
teristic of  the  moment.1  For  instance,  when 
Dmitri  Karamazov  observes  a  responsive  spark  in 
the  eyes  of  his  brother  Al'osha,  he  calls  them 
'  cjlaz'onld  ' :  neither  simply  glazd  nor  glaz/a,  both 

1  There  is  an  excellent  example  given  in  Mr.  Nevill  Forbes's 
Russian  grammar:  lie  says  that  when  a  guard  on  a  Russian 
train,  asking  you  to  show  your  ticket,  uses  the  word  bU'rt'ik 
instead  of  saying  it  in  its  original  form,  bil'et,  it  means  that  he 
will  not  decline  a  tip  !  This  is  perfectly  right,  and  beautifully 
illustrates  the  attitude  of  the  speaker,  expressed  in  one  little 
additional  syllable  ! 


140       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

meaning  eyes,  but  gl&z'onki  :  this  is  because  Dosto- 
yevski  wanted  to  convey  to  his  reader  the  exact 
manner  in  which  Dmitri  Karamazov  was  struck  by 
the  responsive  flash  in  his  brother's  gaze.  It  needs 
a  whole  paragraph  to  carry  it  in  English;  the  ter- 
mination chosen  by  Dmitri  (glaz'owH)  conveys 
approximately  this :  '  Ah  !  those  dear,  serious  eyes 
of  yours;  they,  too,  can  sparkle  with  the  ecstasy 
of  passion  !  .  .  .  You  understand  me — I  can  see 
it  in  their  gleam,  and  I  love  you  the  more  for  it. . .  .' 
Dmitri's  discovery  of  a  weak  spot  in  his  pure- 
minded  brother,  and  of  loving  him  the  more  for 
it,  is  all  expressed  in  that  ending  of  the  word  which 
he  has  chosen  from  amongst  several  other  ter- 
minations. 

One  of  the  latter,  for  example,  is  glaz'ishche,  used 
on  fantastically  uncanny  occasions;  thus,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  meeting  of  a  child  with  a  witch,  the 
story-teller  will  describe  her  eyes,  in  a  voice  of 
horror,  as  '  green  gl&zishche  glittering  with  a  bane- 
ful light.'  Or,  the  vacant  gaze  of  a  half-witted 
street-corner  philosopher  would  inspire  his  com- 
rades with  the  desire  to  shake  him  and  say:  '  Gey, 
wake  up  !  Why  are  thy  gl&zlshche  coming  out  of 
thine  head  ?' 

That  same  termination  goes  beautifully  with  the 
boots  (ordinarily,  sapogl)  of  a  man  who  steps  into 
your  house  from  a  muddy  road  without  having 
wiped  them;  we  dislike  dirty  boots  intensely,  and 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       141 

the  first  thing  you  will  call  out  on  this  occasion 
(instead  of  remarking  politely  that  '  it  is  very  wet 
indeed  ')  will  be : 

'  Vytri  (wipe)  s&ipojishchi-to  !  Ish,  natoptal !' 
Well,  in  this  short  phrase  the  termination  added 
to  the  ordinary  word  for  boots  makes  one  instantly 
visualize  the  glance  of  disgust  which  the  speaker 
has  cast  on  those  clumsy  boots,  heavy  with  mud 
sticking  on  to  them;  to  is  one  of  the  eloquent  par- 
ticles that  form  no  part  of  speech  at  all,  but  are 
bits  of  various  words;  it  stands  here  for  further 
intensifying  your  demand  to  see  those  boots  wiped 
first  of  all !  Ish  is  another  of  those  particles,  and 
stands  for  '  There,  just  look  at  him !'  While 
natoptal  (the  past  tense,  in  singular,  masculine, 
from  the  verb  toptdt'  =  to  tread,  with  the  addi- 
tional syllable  of  nuance  no)  means :  '  Hasn't  he 
made  a  mess  on  the  floor  !' 

Total:  Sixteen  English  words  necessary  to  con- 
vey the  meaning  of  the  three  words  and  two 
'  particles  '  of  the  Russian  original. 

Sometimes  a  diminutive  ending  conveys  bound- 
less mockery.  For  instance,  the  piskdr'iki  (in  the 
scene  of  the  scandal  at  the  monastery,  Brothers 
Karamdz  v)  is  translated  by  Mrs.  Constance  Garnett 
as  '  gudgeons  '  and  couldn't  be  translated  as  any- 
thing else,  because  piskar'fe'  are  gudgeons  as  well 
as  piskar'i ;  but  there  is  a  world  of  difference  in  the 
tone  of  the  speaker,  who  is  using  the  first  one  in- 


142       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

stead  of  the  second  :  Karamazov  selects  it  to  express 
a  world  of  scorn  and  most  emphatic  defiance.1 
various         There  are  caressive  terminations  given  even  to 

termina- 

tions con-  adjectives  and  adverbs.    For  instance,  Dostoyevski, 

veying  the 

exact  atti-  in  describing  the  grey  hair  of  the  elder  Zoslma,  calls 

tude  of  the  . 

speaker,    it  not  simply  s'edyie  (grey)  hair,  but  a'&d'e 


which  every  Kussian  would  also  do,  because  the 
old  man  whose  appearance  is  described  is  good  and 
attractive  and  sweet  and  small.  One  could  not  pos- 
sibly say  s'ed'en'kiye  about  the  hair  of  a  man  if 
one  hated  him  !  Yet  in  another  language  it  can  be 
nothing  else  but  simply  '  grey  '  (s'edyie)  —  unless  it 
is  '  greyish,'  which  is  a  different  thing;  and  thus  the 
lovable  attitude  of  the  speaker  is  not  conveyed  here 
any  more  than  it  is  in  hundreds  of  similar  cases. 
(By  the  way:  s'edyie  stands  for  grey  hair  only: 
grey  mice,  or  donkeys,  or  coats,  etc.,  are  s'eryie.) 

If  you  speak  of  a  far  distance  without  specially 
objecting  to  its  being  far,  you  make  the  adverb 
daTeko  (far)  into  a  daVokon'Tco  !  Or,  in  trying  to 
persuade  your  friend  to  come  with  you  to  your 
destination,  you  say  it  is  Uiz'ohon'ko,  in  a  coaxing 
tone  of  voice,  instead  of  saying  simply  Uizkc, 
although  both  mean  '  near  '  in  English  —  a  word 
which  could  not  possibly  be  distorted.  Or  '  early  ' 
is  in  Eussian  rdno.  To  express  unpleasant  antici- 
pation at  the  thought  of  compulsory  early  rising 

1  I  allude  so  frequently  to  this  special  book,  being  under  the 
impression  that  it  is  the  one  Russian  novel  which  has  really 
attracted  attention  amongst  the  English  public. 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       143 

you  would  say — ranavdtof  Whereas,  speaking  of 
rising  to  enjoy  the  beauties  of  the  dawn,  you  would 
say,  with  keen  appreciation,  '  It  was  so  beautiful 
this  morning  that  I  got  up  mn'ohon'ko  /'  This 
latter  twist  to  the  adverb  is  also  used  in  a  tone  of 
childish  complaint,  as  in  the  opera  '  Rusalka ' 
(Mermaid)  when  the  forsaken  heroine  complains 
that  her  husband  wakes  her  up  very  early  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  telling  her  that  he  will  be  absent  for 
the  day  as  usual ! 

Even  some  conjunctions  carry  different  degrees 
of  the  same  meaning  with  a  partial  alteration  of 
the  word;  thus,  otchevo  means  '  Why  ?' — but  if  the 
question  is  asked  in  a  rude  tone,  it  is  expressed  by 
the  absence  of  the  first  syllable.  Thus,  you  would 
affectionately  reproach  your  friend:  '  Otchevo  did 
you  not  come  and  see  me  when  I  expected  you  !' 
But,  if  an  old  comrade  thrusts  himself  into  your 
private  den  at  an  inconvenient  moment,  you  are 
sure  to  exclaim  with  irritation:  '  Chevo  hast  thou 
come  at  this  hour  ?'  Or,  in  a  crowd  in  which  every- 
one is  eager  to  get  to  the  front,  you  will  not  infre- 
quently see  a  fellow  who  is  elbowing  his  way 
through,  stopped  by  the  none  too  polite  query: 
'  Chevo  dost  thou  push  ?51  The  Russian  crowd  is 

1  It  is  this  sort  of  '  why  '  that  would  be  used  in  the  above- 
quoted  remark  addressed  to  a  street-corner  philosopher. 

It  should  be  noted  that  it  is  a  different  word  to  the  genitive 
of  the  pronoun  '  what '  (chto,  chevo,  etc.).  The  rude  half  of  the 
conjunction  '  why  '  goes  exclusively  with  verbs,  not  nouns. 


144       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

rougher  than  an  English  one,  and  the  same  people 
who  will  show  great  depth  of  feeling  in  matters  of 
importance  remain  insensitive  where  mere  polite- 
ness is  concerned.  To  us  politeness  does  not  neces- 
sarily indicate  goodness  of  heart. 

Numerous  adjectives  defining  shapes,  colours,  or 
any  other  qualities  are  given  that  twist  of  caressive- 
ness  if  the  speaker  is  in  a  gentle,  appreciative  mood. 
So,  b'ely  means  white;  but  b'&'ea'it  means  nice  and 
white.  Speaking  of  a  pretty  white  kitten  or  puppy 
you  are  most  likely  to  apply  the  caressive  form  of 
the  adjective,  b'ePen'ii;  but  a  snow-covered  land- 
scape or  a  white  elephant  could  not  be  possibly 
called  otherwise  than  b'ely!  Well — perhaps  with 
one  exception :  if  you  did  wash  and  scrub  a  white 
elephant  or  a  white  hippopotamus  with  your  own 
hands,  and  took  rather  a  pride  in  it,  you  might 
say,  in  admiration :  '  Look  at  him !  Isn't  he 
VeVertki  now  V 

Likewise,  you  would  call  a  blue  sky  golubdye  n'ebo ; 
but  a  baby's  blue  blanket  would  be  more  likely  to 
be  called  goluben'koye.  (Again,  these  examples  do 
not  mean  whitish  or  bluish  at  all:  in  that  case  they 
would  acquire  stiJl  different  terminations.) 

Don  Quixote  was  thin,  huddy ;  whereas  a  frail, 
meek  boy  is  Imd'en'ki  in  the  conception  of  his 
mother,  and  simply  hud  in  the  definition  of  a 
business-like  doctor. 

Sancho  Panza  was  a  jirny  fellow,  fat ;  but  when 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       145 

the  Kussian  Easter  markets  are  teeming  with  nice, 
fat,  pink  poros'dta,  sucking  pigs,  their  owners, 
the  shopkeepers,  in  inviting  the  crowds  of  buyers 
each  to  his  stall,  call  out  in  an  appetizing  manner — 
twisting  both  the  name  of  the  tasty  subjects  and 
their  desired  quality  in  an  admiring  way:  Poro- 
s'atH  iim'en'kiye!  Poios'onochki  prejirnyie  !  .  .  . 
Pojaluyt'e  (be  welcome)  gospoda,  pojaluyt'e !  .  .  .' 
Only  the  adjectives  depicting  qualities  of  power, 
beauty,  alertness,  as  well  as  those  dealing  with 
abstract  and  wider  conceptions,  or  those  defining 
unattractive  qualities,  keep  their  original  forms 
always — quite  logically,  too:  because  they  com- 
mand respect,  admiration,  serious  thought,  or  dis- 
pleasure, and  not  a  merry,  lovable  or  humorous 
attitude.  Such  are,  for  instance,  moguchi=powei- 
ful,  pr'ekrasny= beautiful,  bystry= quick,  lovki= 
alert,  v'echny  =  eternal,  sm'ertny  =  mortal,  po- 
b 'edny— victorious,  mlrny= peaceful,  etc. 
***** 

Effectively  balancing  the  caressiveness  of   the  Poignancy 

T>      •       i  J.-L        •    -A.  A         A. of  exPres- 

Russian  language  there  is  its  poignancy.     A  great  sions. 

deal  of  poignancy  has  been  lost  (or  perhaps  purposely 
omitted  ?)  in  the  Russian  works  by  the  translators' 
dropping  almost  all  the  graphic,  pointed  expressions 
which  are  labelled  '  slang  '  in  English.  I  have 
already  mentioned  that  our  authors  do  not  hesi- 
tate for  a  moment  to  use  slang,  not  only  in  the 

mouths  of  their  characters,  but  in  speaking  for 

10 


146       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

themselves.  For  instance,  the  words  quoted  in 
the  footnote  below1  and  taken  at  random  from  a 
standard  English  translation  are  incomparably  less 
cutting,  less  sarcastic  than  they  are  in  the  Russian 
original.  And  again,  greatly  trusting  and  admiring 
Mrs.  Constance  Garnett's  knowledge  of  the  Russian 
language,  I  can  only  suggest  that  she  must  feel 
cramped  and  limited  by  the  non-existence  of  many 
equivalents  in  English  as  well  as  by  the  ostracism 
exercised  by  English  literature  over  everything  not 
comme  ilfaut,  even  when  it  is  the  very  expression 
which  would  put  the  spark  of  life  into  a  bookish 
phrase.  There  certainly  exists  some  splendid  Eng- 
lish slang  which  cannot  be  translated  even  into  the 
Russian ;  but  we  feel  it  a  very  provoking  and  very 
disappointing  thing  to  be  at  a  loss  on  these  rare 
occasions  !  We  would  never  think  of  improving  an 
author  by  polishing  his  language.  And  it  would  be 
exceedingly  interesting  to  know  what  makes  the 
translators  deprive  Gor'ki  and  Dostoyevski  of  the 

1  For  instance:  Puny  weakling,  fantastical  fellows,  to 
attach  himself  to  a  good  family,  on  the  slightest  encouragement, 
greediness,  orgies  of  drunkenness,  had  thrown  herself  into,  he 
gets  rid,  father,  not  over  scrupulously,  blackguard,  telling  lies, 
run  at  your  father  with  a  knife,  the  piano,  uttered  his  foolish 
tirade,  it  was  a  nonsensical  idea  of  mine,  I  want  to  pass  for  a 
man,  that  is  what  pulls  him  through,  they  don't  smell  it,  un- 
clean, get  up  !  thou  liest,  thrashing,  girls,  drunk,  emasculate, 
dirt,  regular  fright,  quite,  what  is  this  to  do  with,  nice  looking, 
etc. — These  phrases  and  expressions  are  not  at  all  slang  in 
English,  which  they  ought  to  be  if  they  were  meant  to  convey 
the  author's  tone  in  his  narrative. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       147 

colours  which  should  remain  inseparable  from  their 
palettes:  is  it  their  entire  absence  from  amongst 
the  English  paints  ?  Or  have  they  no  passports 
into  English  literature  ? 

#  *  *  #  * 

Talking  about  slang,  I  would  like  to  mention  Some 
something  about  Russian  swear-words  and  expres-  swear- 
sions  of  anger  in  general.     We   are  not  goody- 
goodies.     There  seems  to  be  room  for  everything 
in  the  Russian  nature — and   Russian  speech.     A 
very  popular  manner  of  swearing  in  Russia  is  the 
one  summed  up  in  wishing  all  sorts  of  uncomfort- 
able things  for  the  victim : 

1  Mayest    thou   feel    empty !'    (suggesting   both 
material  and  spiritual  emptiness,  hunger  and  lone 
liness). 

'  May  crayfish  trample  thee  flat !' 

'  May  It  blow  thee  up  as  large  as  a  mountain  !' 

'  Mayest  thou  have  no  top  or  bottom  P 

'  This  is  enough  to  carry  the  Saints  (the  ikons) 
out!'  Or  :  '  Carry  away  my  grief  !'  .  .  .  These 
two  exclamations  escape  us  when  we  hear  giftless 
singing,  or  playing,  or  some  utter  nonsense. 

There  must  be  a  kind  of  instinctive  competition 
in  imagination  in  this  case  in  every  language,  I  am 
sure.  The  more  boundless  the  imagination  the 
better  !  I  don't  mean  that  there  exists  no  swear- 
ing or  cursing  in  Russia  which  is  not  fit  to  be  ac- 
knowledged by  any  language.  Gor'ki  calls  it 
'  idiotically  mean,'  and  says  that  it  remains  dark 


148       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

even  to  the  minds  of  those  beasts  who  utter  it. 
But  I  would  like  to  say,  by  the  way,  that  there  are 
many  curses  centring  round  dogs,  which  would  cut 
to  the  heart  those  English  ladies  who  call  themselves 
the  '  mothers  '  of  their  pet  dogs.  .  .  .  This,  in  its 
turn,  jars  upon  us  !  There  exist  no  households  in 
Russia  where  the  dog's  outing  or  food  would  form 
a  recurring  topic  of  conversation  even  at  meals. 

The  old  English  expression  '  Scratch  a  Russian, 
find  a  Tartar  '  ought  to  be  forgotten — for  more  than 
one  reason.  Firstly,  because  a  Russian  does  not 
need  any  scratching  in  order  to  get  at  his  inner- 
most self.  Really,  of  our  two  nationalities  it  is 
not  the  Russian  that  does  need  it !  ...  It  is 
the  best  part  of  a  Russian  that  you  always  know 
where  you  are  when  you  have  to  deal  with  him. 
Secondly — or  rather  consequently — it  is  not  the 
Tartar  at  all  that  comes  out  with  (unnecessary  !) 
scratching,  but  the  true,  real  Russian  himself. 
Because  his  next  best  quality  is  many-sidedness: 
he  allows  himself  to  be  openly  angry  when  he  feels 
angry,  just  as  he  allows  his  heart  to  go  out  to 
people  when  they  do  appeal  to  him.  We  are  not 
capable  of  concealed  fermenting,  whether  with 
wrath  or  exaltation.  Therefore  the  expressions 
chort  voz'mi!  (devil  take  it!)  and  chort  znayet! 
(devil  knows)  are  much  more  homely  with  us  than 
they  are  in  this  country,  especially  as  we  have 
two  words  for  devil:  b'e<$  is  a  sinister,  right-down 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       149 

wrathful  personality,  while  chirt  is  a  spirit  of  mis- 
chief —  unpleasant,  but  understandable  !  When 
angry,  a  Russian  does  not  search  in  his  pocket  for 
words,  as  we  say,  but  he  has  no  need,  either,  to 
search  for  them  when  he  is  delighted  with  you. 

The  things  that  make  a  Russian  angry  most  are : 
injustice,  stupidity,  cruelty,  narrowness,  and  gift- 
less  rendering  of  art's  creations. 

Just  another  few  lines  before  I  close  this  topic.  A  unique 

.        term  to 

There  exists  one  very  quaint  and  very  Russian  depict 
word — not  exactly  a  swear- word,  but  an  expression 
of  neglect  and  of  distaste  for  someone.  Please 
remember  the  respect  with  which  intellect  is  re- 
garded in  Russia ;  but  if  I  succeeded  in  making  that 
point  clear  at  the  beginning  of  the  book  (pp.  17, 
18),  you  will  not  feel  surprised  for  more  than  one 
moment  that  the  term  of  contempt  I  am  about  to 
explain  is  derived  from  the  noun  meaning  brains  ! 
Yes,  mozgl  is  brains,  and  is  often  used  for  intellect, 
just  as  in  the  English  phrase  '  he  has  got  brains  ' ; 
but  the  adjective  mozgl'dvy,  or,  still  worse,  moz- 
gl'aven'ki  is  a  most  unpleasant  characteristic.  Its 
nature  is  very  subtle,  though,  and  I  wonder  whether 
I  shall  be  able  to  explain  clearly.  Again  I  must 
look  for  help  in  Dostoyevski:  the  old  father  Kara- 
mazov  was  a  mozgl'avy  starichlshka — the  last  word 
meaning  in  itself  a  nasty,  objectionable,  little  old 
man.  He  had  brains,  yes :  but  he  had  brains  only, 
and  the  other  characters  in  the  book  call  him  moz- 


150       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

gl'avy  with  disgust.  The  word  carries  an  idea  of 
dry-as-dust  brains,  of  a  large  skull  over  a  shrivelled 
body,  of  a  leering  smile ;  on  the  whole,  of  an  intellect 
not  supported  by  the  blood  of  the  heart,  nor  even 
by  a  healthy  physique.  Thus  the  Eussian  defini- 
tion is  as  unique  as  it  is  poignant.  We  do  not  use 
the  adjective  '  brainy  '  with  respect,  as  it  is  used 
in  English;  we  do  possess  it  (mozgovoy),  but  it 
goes  only  with  medical  and  anatomical  definitions. 
We  do  say  '  this  business  needs  brains  ' ;  but  the 
moment  the  noun  is  turned  into  the  adjective 
mozgl'avy  it  goes  with  people's  characters  only 
and  means  brainy  in  a  wretched,  withered,  blood- 
less, warmthless  way. 

*  #  *  *  # 

I  wonder  whether  the  word  nadryv  contains  its 
exact  meaning  in  its  English  aspect,  '  laceration.' 
This  is  one  of  the  beloved  words  of  Dostoyevski, 
simply  because  it  conveys  the  atmosphere  of  that 
typical  Eussian  spiritual  suffering.  Laceration,  in 
English,  means  not  only  tearing  something  which 
still  remains  intact  as  a  whole,  but  also  a  rending 
into  two  distinct  parts.  Now,  nadryv  means  ex- 
clusively a  rough,  but  not  final  rent — whether  in  a 
substance  or  a  situation:  the  syllable  nod  being 
there  distinctly  for  the  purpose  of  conveying  this 
nuance;  because  a  complete  laceration  is  razryv, 
and  not  nadiyv.  Both  of  these  words  are  applied 
in  Eussian  to  concrete  as  well  as  to  abstract  sub- 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       161 

jects.  A  nadryv  in  one's  faith,  or  love,  or  friend- 
ship, is  a  universally  acknowledged  pain.  It  causes 
efforts  to  mend  things  where  a  final  blow  (laceration 
=raziyv)  would  be  more  logical  and  more  bearable. 

Dostoyevski's  ultra-Kussian  characters  torture 
themselves  with  their  ultra-noble  efforts  to  do 
things  which  are  superhuman,  but  which  they 
regard  as  essential,  highest  and  purest.  Therefore 
they  do  not  attempt  to  attain  the  relief  which  a 
final  laceration  (raziyv)  would  give  them,  but  go 
on  painfully  enjoying  a  nadryv:  i.e.,  that  half-rent 
which  makes  them  continually  try  and  persuade 
themselves  that  their  superhuman  efforts  are  not 
only  just  and  beautiful,  but  attainable  as  well.1 

So,  Katerina  Ivanovna  is  trying  with  all  her  might 
to  love  the  reckless  Dmitri  when  she  loves  Ivan. 
Or,  to  take  a  modern  example,  if  a  girl  engaged  to  a 
soldier  at  the  front  tried  to  continue  loving  him  if 
he  lost  both  his  arms  and  legs,  this  would  be  a 
typical  love  with  nadryv  as  Dostoyevski  means  it. 
Nadryv  may  also  mean  a  '  breaking- point '  in 
people's  relations;  but  this  English  definition  would 
not  convey  any  more  than  '  laceration  '  does  that 

1  Parallel  to  the  nouns  nadryv  and  razryv,  in  connection 
with  tearing,  there  are: 

Nadl6rn  and  raslom — in  breaking; 
Nadr'ez  and  razr'ez — in  cutting. 

In  each  case  the  first  definition  conveys  the  incomplete 
action;  whereas  the  second  means  that  things  are  completely 
rent,  finally  broken  and  divided. 


152       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

particular  painful  effort — moral  effort — in  one's 
own  heart  which,  is  typical  of  the  Kussian  nature 
as  illustrated  by  Dostoyevski.  I  wonder  whether 
there  is  a  perfect  absence  of  that  supernatural 
effort  in  the  English  nature  ?  Or  what  is  it  else 
that  accounts  for  the  absence  in  the  English 
language  of  a  definition  for  this  subtle  human 
capacity? 

I  must  make  haste  and  reassure  my  reader 
that  not  all  Russians  live  at  such  a  red-hot  pace  ! 
But  Dostoyevski  himself  did,  and  therefore  instinct- 
ively made  his  heroes  do  likewise.  Bits  of  their 
personalities  are  scattered  all  over  the  land,  if  I 
may  say  so ;  but  they  do  not  appear  very  frequently 
in  their  entirety.  It  was  Dostoyevski's  vocation 
to  pick  them  out  and  to  show  them  to  humanity, 
enveloped  in  his  great  love.  And  the  Russians 
recognized  their  weak  brethren,  those  great  suf- 
ferers, and  made  them  live  in  their  hearts  for  ever. 

But  my  English  friends,  after  they  have  read 
Dostoyevski,  ask  me  with  a  sincere,  guileless  smile  : 
'  Do  Russian  men  cry  ?' 

I  hope  Englishmen  would  cry,  too,  if  they  ever 
lived  in  their  inner  lives  at  the  rate  Dostoyevski's 
men  do.  They  would  be  unhuman  if  they  didn't. 
But  I  cannot  very  well  imagine  Englishmen  con- 
fessing even  to  their  most  cherished  friends,  and 
in  moments  of  superlative  excitement,  anything 
resembling  Dmitri  Karamazov's  frank  avowal: 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       153 

'.  .  .  When  I  do  leap  into  the  pit,  I  go  headlong 
with  my  heels  up,  and  am  pleased  to  be  falling  in 
that  degrading  attitude,  and  pride  myself  upon  it, 
and  think  it  to  be  beautiful—  and  in  that  very 
depth  of  degradation  I  begin  a  hymn  of  praise.  Let 
me  be  cursed,  and  vile,  and  base,  but  I  too  kiss  the 
hem  of  the  veil  in  which  my  God  is  shrouded. 
Though  I  may  be  following  the  devil,  I  am  Thy  son, 
0  Lord,  and  I  love  Thee,  and  I  feel  throughout  me 
that  joy  without  which  the  world  could  not  be 
there.  .  .  .' 

Or  like  Ivan  Karamazov : 

'.  .  .  Though  I  may  not  believe  in  the  order  of  the 
universe,  yet  I  cherish  the  sticky  little  leaves  in 
spring.  ...  I  know  that  I  am  going  to  a  grave- 
yard, but  it  is  a  most  precious  graveyard :  precious 
are  the  dead  that  lie  there,  every  stone  over  them 
speaks  of  such  burning  life  in  the  past,  of  such  pas- 
sionate faith  in  their  work,  their  truth,  their 
struggle,  and  their  science,  that  I  know  I  shall  fall 
on  the  ground  and  kiss  those  stones  and  weep  over 
them;  though  I  am  convinced  in  my  heart  that  it's 
long  been  nothing  but  a  graveyard.  And  I  shall 
not  weep  from  despair,  but  simply  because  I  shall 
be  happy  in  my  tears,  I  shall  steep  my  soul  in 
emotion.  .  .  .' 

The  graveyard  thus  alluded  to  by  Ivan  is  the 
world  of  his  education  abroad.  The  Romance 
'  precious  dead  J  might  be  surprised  with  such  a 


154       THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

passionate  attitude  towards  them  of  a  man  of 
twenty-three  !  He  is  not  shy  to  express  it. 

A  few  lines  further  on,  Ivan  adds : 

'  I  love  the  sticky  leaves  in  spring,  I  love  the  blue 
sky.  ...  It  isn't  a  matter  of  intellect  or  logic — 
one  loves  nutrom,  chrevom.  .  .  .' 

These  last  two  words  are  translated : '  With  one's 
inside,  with  one's  stomach.  .  .  .' 

I  cannot  let  this  pass.  Chrevo  is  not  the 
Modern  Eussian,  but  the  Old  Slavonic,  for 
stomach,  which  makes  all  the  difference  to  the 
colouring  of  this  sentence  in  the  original.  The 
first  of  the  two  words,  nutrom,  is  not  an  every- 
day definition  for  inside,  either.  I  understand 
that  the  English  of  the  Authorized  Bible  pre- 
sents some  luxurious  choice  of  beautiful  ancient 
expressions;  and,  in  the  given  instance,  the  Old 
Russian  expression  corresponds  to  the  lines  ap- 
pearing in  the  old  version  of  the  English  Bible 
twice  (1  Kings  iii.  26  and  Genesis  xliii.  30) :  '  For 
her  bowels  yearned  upon  her  son,'  '  For  his 
bowels  yearned  upon  his  brother.'  The  only  subtle 
difference  being  that  '  yearning  '  is  nearer  to  the 
Russian  conception  toska  (p.  91)  than  to  the 
overpowering  thirst  for  loving  which  Dostoyevski 
saw  in  Ivan's  heart.  Nevertheless,  the  quoted 
biblical  expression  does  convey  the  idea  of  the 
immense  difference  it  would  make  if  adopted  in 
translating,  and  the  justice  it  would  do  in  that 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       155 

way  to  the  original.  As  it  stands  now,  how  an 
English  reader  must  laugh  at  the  way  of  '  loving 
with  one's  inside,  with  one's  stomach !'  How 
common  it  sounds  in  modern,  everyday  English  ! 
Yet,  we  apply  the  definition  nutrom  not  only  to 
loving  in  an  intense,  instinctive  way,  but  even  to 
acting  in  a  beautiful  manner.  The  most  beloved 
of  our  greatest  actors  and  actresses  are  always 
those  who  create  their  parts,  not  merely  with  the 
help  of  refined  mentality,  but  also  by  living  in  them 
with  every  fibre  of  their  bodies  and  all  the  inner- 
most particles  of  their  egos.  That  is  called  playing 
nutrom.  Certainly  not  one  genius  of  the  Kussian 
stage  would  be  able  to  understand  how  to  follow 
the  minute  instructions  which  English  dramatists 
shower  on  English  actors.  It  would  be  utterly 
impossible  to  him  to  play  nutrom,  i.e.,  actually 
living  through  every  moment  of  the  play  with  the 
highest  intensity  of  which  a  human  creature  is 
capable,  while  handicapped  by  the  author  in  every 
step  and  gesture. 

Thus  the  expression  to  love  with  one's  inside, 
with  one's  stomach,  must  look  to  the  English  eye 
'  funny;'  it  does  no  justice  to  the  feeling  which  in 
this  country  is  usually  well  screened  by  decorum. 
Here  is  again  the  same  old  difficulty — the  differ- 
ence in  national  characteristics.  The  dislike  of 
the  English  for  mentioning  their  feelings  leaves 
them  unable  to  invent  words  to  define  these 


156     THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

feelings.  As  to  actually  experiencing  them,  I 
cling  to  the  bright  hope  that  '  perhaps  a  hundred, 
perhaps  ten,  perhaps  one  .  .  .'  amongst  refined 
Englishmen  has  cried  for  once  in  his  life  with  exalt- 
ation, or  with  the  complexity  of  his  spiritual 
suffering  ! 

..."  I  am  vile,  and  I  am  pleased  with  myself. 
Yet  I  suffer  with  being  pleased  with  myself '  .  .  . 
says  Dmitri. 

'  One  lives  in  his  books;  Dostoyevski  makes  one,' 
writes  one  of  my  brilliant  English  friends;  '  but  I 
feel  physically  exhausted  after  having  been  for  an 
hour  or  two  in  company  with  the  Karamazovs.  Is 
it  the  even  tenor  of  my  English  mind — rural  and 
philosophic — which  refuses  to  be  disturbed  by  the 
intensity  of  their  emotions  ?' 

It  is  inevitable  that  a  great  writer  like  Dosto- 
yevski should  arouse  a  sense  of  disturbance  in  all 
equable  philosophic  minds,  and  although  I  feel 
sorry  to  see  my  beloved  friends  exhausted,  yet 
...  I  think  Dostoyevski  may  do  them  a  little 
good  ! 

As  it  is,  I  have  been  pleasantly  surprised  to  hear 
many  a  time  another  English  remark  on  the  same 
author :  '  It  is  most  extraordinary :  he  shows  you 
the  vilest  situations,  describes  the  darkest  crimes, 
and  yet  you  don't  feel  indignant  with  his  char- 
acters. You  feel  just  sorry  for  them.' 

This  leads  to  the  gist  of  Dostoyevski's  command- 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       157 

ment:  .  .  .  '  We  are  all  the  same.  .  .  .  We  may 
be  better  where  we  are,  but  we  would  have  been 
just  the  same  in  their  places.  .  .  .' 

I  met  one  Englishman  (just  one,  labelled  by  his 
friends  as  '  quite  mad  ')  who  said  : 

'  I  realize  that  Dostoyevski  is  undeniably  right 
in  stating  this.' 


I  have  been  obliged  to  use  the  word  command- 
ment  just  now  because  this  is  the  nearest  to  the  gjj  which 
Kussian  meaning.   There  is  a  blank  space  in  English  Russian 
for  the  exact  conception  which  every  Russian  would  wouia 
apply  here.    Commandment  in  Russian  is  zapov'ed*  ;  Russian. 
but  there  is  a  word  somewhat  akin  to  it,  yet  im- 
plying less  of  the  authority  of  the  law  and  more  of 
the  wholehearted  willingness  to  obey:  it  is  zav'et. 
We  apply  it  to  a  dying  person's  last  words  in  which 
a  wish  is  expressed  for  something  to  be  carried  out 
after  his  death;  we  call  a  parting  wish  of  our  be- 
loved one  a  zav'et  ;  a  wish  of  our  mother,  or  dearest 
friend,  is  also  a  zav'et  to  us:  in  fact,  everything  the 
fulfilment  of  which  we  regard  as  our  cherished, 
sacred    duty.      Literature    and    art  —  especially 
dramatic  art  —  have  also  the  fascination  of  their 
zavety  l  to  us.     The  theatre  is  regarded  in  Russia 
not  merely  as  a  pleasant  pastime,  but  as  an  edu- 
cational factor  in  our  lives,  from  which  we  expect 
material  for  profound   thought;  the  stage  is  our 

1  In  plural. 


158       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

beloved  school  of  life.     Therefore,  the  word  zavety 
is  constantly  applied  to  our  stage,  poetry,  and  even 
music — to  art  in  all  its  branches.     The  zavety  of 
Tolstoy,  Dostoyevski,  Shchedrin,  Ostrovski,  Gogol', 
Pushkin,  Chaykovski,  Vasn'etzov,  Nest'erev,  Be- 
1'lnski,  are  concrete,  vivid  conceptions  to  us,  per- 
fectly clear  and  beloved  commandments :  Tolstoy's 
zavet  is  spiritual  peace;  Turgen'ev's — virgin  love; 
Pushkin's  —  nationalism  ;  Dostoyevski' s  —  all-for- 
giveness; Shchedrln's,  Ostrovski's — enlightenment; 
G6gol"s,  Chaykovski's — love  for  Kussia's  vein  of 
art  and  sadness;   Vasn'etzov's  and  Nest'erev's— 
love  for  Russia's  mysticism;  Chehov's  and  Gor'ki's 
— present  problems  of  her  social  life;  and  so  on. 
Therefore  I  have  instinctively  tried  to  define  Dosto- 
yevski's  leading  idea  as  his  zav'et  to  us.     It  is  one 
of   those  definitions  without  which  the  Russian 
language  would  cease  to  be  Russian. 

The  nearest  English  parallel  is  '  watchword/  but 
one  never  hears  it  applied  so  often  and  so  lovingly 
as  the  zav'et  is  applied  with  us;  here  the  same  old 
national  difference  in  the  hue  of  the  definitions 
stands  out  clearly:  In  pronouncing  '  watchword  ' 
you  imagine  a  strict,  strong,  unyielding  fighter 
defending  his  ideas,  almost  a  warrior;  in  pronounc- 
ing '  zav'et '  we  imagine  a  grave  idealist  repeating 
his  dreams  on  his  death-bed,  his  very  eyes  asking 
those  who  remain  after  him  to  continue  the  message 
to  the  world,  for  which  he  has  already  travailed. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       159 

The  adjective  zav'etny  is  a  dear  one,  and  is  applied 
to  a  cherished  memory,  to  a  sacred  longing,  even 
to  some  certain  little  nook  in  the  world,  which,  for 
some  personal  reason,  has  become  secretly  precious 

to  you. 

***** 

The  latest  pearl  in  Russian  literature  is  decidedly  A  new 

J   pearl  of 

Gor'ki's  Childhood.     In  it  he  describes  his  early  Russian 

J   literature. 

experiences  in  a  dark  corner  of  Russian  life,  amongst 
the  industrial  artisans  at  Nljniy  Novgorod  some 
forty  years  ago.  That  corner  was  full  of  '  leaden 
viles,'  as  he  calls  them. 

'  It  was  that  virile,  mean  truth  which  is  not  yet 
dead.  That  truth  which  should  be  exposed  down 
to  its  roots  in  order  to  be  pulled,  with  its  roots, 
out  of  our  memory,  out  of  Man's  soul,  out  of  the 
whole  of  our  hard  and  shameful  life.  .  .  . 
Although  these  viles  are  disgusting,  and  have 
crushed  a  number  of  beautiful  hearts  to  death, 
yet  the  Russian  is  still  so  healthy  and  youthful 
in  his  spirit  that  he  is  overpowering  them,  and  will 
finally  overpower  them.  It  is  not  only  this  which 
is  extraordinary  in  our  life — that  the  layer  of 
beastly  viles  is  so  rich  and  so  fertile — but  also  the 
fact  that  through  this  layer  the  Light,  the  Healthy 
and  the  Creative,  still  victoriously  force  their  way 
and  grow,  good  and  humane.' 

Even  in  this  very  corner  of  drunken  cruelty,  a 
whole  world  of  the  people's  beautiful  speech  is 


160     THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

again  revealed  to  us.  Gor'ki's  own  masterful  chisel 
creates  genuine  Eussian  words  at  the  need  of  the 
moment,  and  they  correspond  to  the  similar 
genuine  art  of  his  characters  in  beautiful  harmony. 
Even  before,  Gor'ki  wrote  in  a  style  which  was  a 
fascination  in  itself  even  to  those  who  were  not 
carried  away  with  his  subjects.  But  his  Child- 
hood is  acknowledged  as  his  chef-d'osuvre.  It  is 
no  wonder  that  The  English  Review  hastened  to 
produce  some  of  it  for  the  English  public1;  and 
also,  it  is  by  no  means  wonderful  that  the  trans- 
lator was  obliged  to  leave  out  whole  pages  !  As 
I  have  already  mentioned,  one  feels  grateful  for  this 
consideration  on  the  part  of  the  English  translator 
towards  Gor'ki.  If  Gor'ki  does  not  know  English, 
he  must  be  surprised  at  these  abbreviations;  but 
if  he  does,  he  is  sure  to  be  thankful  in  his  heart. 
Even  comparatively  small  alterations  hurt  the  eye 
and  ear  of  a  Russian  who  reads  this  translation.  .  .  . 

With  the  very  first  phrase  of  the  book  Gor'ki 
plunges  into  the  present  tense,  which  obviously 
'  wouldn't  do  '  in  English  (as  it  is  replaced  by  the 
imperfect  tense  throughout) : 

'  In  a  half-dark,  shut-in  room,  on  the  floor  near 
the  window,  lies  my  father,  dressed  in  something 
white  and  extraordinarily  long.  The  toes  of  his 
bare  feet  are  strangely  erect,  the  fingers  of  his 
caressive  hands  are  folded  on  his  chest,  and  are  also 

1  It  has  been  since  published  in  book  form. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       161 

crooked;  his  gay  eyes  are  tightly  covered  with 
copper  coins;  the  kind  face  is  dark  and  frightens 
me  with  its  uncanny  grin.' 

And  so  on.  Gor'ki  keeps  to  the  present  tense  for 
several  pages,  and  they  lose  half  of  their  graphic 
power  in  the  quiet  English  past  tense. 

Here    is   one    of    the   differences   between   our The 

favourite 

two  languages :  the  present  tense  is  decidedly  our  Russian 
favourite.     So  much  so  that  we  sacrifice  to  this 
weakness   even  our  grammar !     If  you  want  to 
give  a  vivid  picture  of  what  you  have  seen  or  heard, 
you  invariably  say  it  in  this  way : 

'  Yesterday  I  walk  along  the  street  and  I  sud- 
denly see— 

'  Last  week  I  meet  So-and-So  and  I  hear 

'  Three  years  ago  I  am  crossing  Europe  on  my 

way  to  England  when  I  suddenly  come  across 

etc.,  etc. 

We  cannot  help  this  form  of  narrative.  It  dis- 
tinctly vivifies  our  speech.  Of  course,  this  theoreti- 
cally-absurd combination  of  the  past  times  with 
the  present  tense  is  not  so  striking  when  those 
times  are  not  defined:  thus,  although  the  picture 
of  Gor'ki's  dead  father  lying  on  the  floor  refers  to 
some  fifty  years  ago,  the  narrative  runs  smoothly, 
without  mentioning  the  time  at  all — as  if  it  were 
all  happening  now  beneath  the  eyes  of  the  reader 
— which  is  the  purpose  of  the  author  and  which 

makes  him  instinctively  apply  the  national  style 

11 


162       THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

of  telling  a  story.  All  our  heroic  epos,  whether 
repeated  or  written,  is  given  in  the  present  tense. 
You  can  drop  into  it  at  any  place  of  any  of  your 
narratives,  too.  A  very  popular  modern  novel  is 
written  in  the  present  tense  throughout  its  nine 
volumes — and  the  author  makes  you  live  in  it.  So 
here  is  already  a  big  though  seemingly  inevitable 
drawback  in  the  English  version  of  Gor'ki's  Child- 
hood. 

Another  The  rays  of  love  shining  through  the  pages  of 
Russian  this  wonderful  book  are  different  from  those  of 
of  love.  Dostoyevski's.  They  are  equally  Kussian,  but  they 
emanate  from  types  less  complex.  The  wicked 
passions  in  the  atmosphere  of  this  book  are  un- 
bridled and  cruel  in  a  more  primitive  way;  but  so 
are  the  joys.  Everything  is  haul-relief  without 
having  the  arabesques  of  refined  complexity  worked 
in  their  surface.  And  in  the  place  of  painful  love 
'  with  nadryv  '  (p.  150),  like  Kat'erina  Ivanovna's, 
or  Grushen'ka's  (for  the  Pole  who  left  her),  we  find 
here  those  rays  of  love  which  bring  warmth  and 
sunshine  unmolested.  Such  is  also  the  love  of 
Dostoyevski's  Al'osha,  Idiot,  and  Zosima;  but  then 
they  are  far  from  being  simple  natures,  whereas 
Gor'ki's  Granny  stands  out  as  a  nugget  of  gold  in 
her  joyful  readiness  for  self-sacrifice  and  forgive- 
ness, without  a  trace  of  nadryv  in  her  heart:  they 
are  born  in  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  Her  large, 
plump,  round-backed  figure,  with  an  extraordinary 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       163 

mass  of  jet-black  hair  falling  down  to  her  knees, 
and  her  shining  black  eyes  enwrapping  you  with 
an  almost  physical  sensation  of  pulsating,  boundless 
love,  will,  from  now  on,  remain  like  another  symbol 
of  that  only  true  joy — the  joy  of  loving — given  to 
humanity.  Her  funny  appearance  does  not  stand 
in  the  way.  Her  powerful  spirit  emanating  it 
shines  from  every  page  of  Gor'ki's  Childhood ;  and 
one  likes  to  leave  oneself  exposed  to  those  warmth- 
giving  rays  of  Granny's,  whether  she  is  inspiring 
her  grandchild  with  the  beauties  of  ancient  folk- 
lore, or  abating  the  quarrels  between  her  drunken 
sons,  or '  swimming  out '  in  a  spontaneous  dance.  . .  . 

'  Lord,  Lord  !  .  .  .  How  beautiful  everything 
is  !  ...  Just  look  round  thee — how  beautiful !' 

'  This  was  the  cry  of  her  heart,'  says  Gor'ki — '  the 
motto  of  all  her  life,'  although  even  the  boy  himself 
was  wondering  what  there  was  so  beautiful  in  the 
appalling  surroundings  of  their  home  ? 

An  artistic  vein  was  one  of  Granny's  charms, 
which  filled  people's  hearts  with  exaltation;  and 
Gor'ki's  description  of  her  spontaneous  dancing  in 
the  hut  at  the  dye-works  will  give  perhaps  a 
glimpse  of  her  outstanding  personality. 

'  Granny  seemed  to  be  not  dancing,  but  telling 
a  story.  There  she  was,  moving  slowly,  as  if  deep 
in  thought,  looking  round  from  under  her  lifted 
elbow,  her  big  body  swaying  hesitatingly,  her  feet 
cautiously  feeling  their  way.  Then  she  stopped, 


164       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

as  if  frightened  by  something.  A  momentary  wave 
of  anxiety,  of  discontent,  flashed  across  her  features 
— and  suddenly  they  were  lit  up  again  by  her  good, 
friendly1  smile,  as  if  she  were  greeting  someone. 
She  swayed  to  the  side,  seemingly  making  room 
for  someone,  bent  her  head,  became  quite  still,  as 
if  listening  to  something,  her  smile  growing  brighter 
and  brighter.  .  .  .  And  suddenly — as  if  some 
power  swept  her  of!  her  feet — she  plunged  into  wild 
dancing,  like  a  hurricane  !  In  an  instant  she  be- 
came taller,  slimmer,  and  it  was  quite  impossible 
to  take  one's  eyes  off  her.' 

Granny         To  judge  by  the  simple  manner  in  which  Granny 
God.         spoke  to  her  little  grandson,  God  seemed  to  be 
quite  near  to   her  life.     Telling  him   about  the 
cunning  of  her  sons  (each  of  whom  was  going  to 
establish  dye-works  of  their  own   and    therefore 
wanted  to  lure  the  best  workers  from  their  father's 
establishment),    she   explained    their  tricks   with 
perfect  simplicity  and  chuckling  gently: 
'  They  only  make  God  laugh  at  them  !' 
On  another  occasion,  she  tells  her  little  friend 
and  admirer,  Gor'ki,  that  she  had  had  eighteen 
children  born  to  her: 

'  Eighteen  !'  she  repeated  joyfully;  '  they  would 
have  occupied  a  whole  street  full  of  houses  if  they 
had  lived  !  I  was  married  before  I  was  fourteen, 

1  Caressive  '  smile  is  the  usual   Russian  definition  for  a 
good  smile,  which  stands  in  the  original. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       165 

you  see,  and  I  bore  the  first  child  a  year  later. 
But  God  came  to  like  my  blood  and  kept  taking 
my  babies  to  join  his  angels.  It  was  a  pity, 
but  it  was  joyful.  .  .  .  He  took  the  best  ones  for 
Himself,  and  left  me  the  worst  ones.  So  I  was  very 
happy  to  adopt  a  foundling.  I  love  you  so,  you 
little  ones !' 

Her  mind  found  a  connection  between  God  and 
her  favourite  horse,  the  mischievous,  spoilt  Sharap, 
who  would  pretend  to  bite  her  shoulders  with  his 
white  teeth,  would  drag  the  silk  shawl  off  her 
head,  and  would  look  at  her  slyly,  shaking  the  rime 
off  his  eyelashes,  expecting  to  be  treated  by  her  to 
something  which  would  please  his  sweet  tooth. 

1  What,  my  child  ?  What,  kitten  V  Granny 
would  say  to  him,  unharnessing  him  after  his  long 
run  in  the  sledges — '  up  to  mischief,  art  thou  ? 
Well,  well,  come  on,  God's  toy  !' 

She  would  speak  of  her  God  even  to  cats  and 
birds  and  trees  and  flowers ;  and  believed  that  when 
'  wandering  to  see  the  sufferings,'1  God's  Mother 
visited  all  Russian  provinces — her  native  E'azan', 
too.' 

The  nightly  prayers  of  this  Granny  are  exquisite  ! 
Gor'ki  says  that,  as  a  little  boy  of  ten,  he  found  it 
most  interesting  to  listen  to  them.  She  would 

1  There  is  an  akapliist  in  the  Greek  Church  under  this  title, 
a  poetic  allegorical  description  of  human  sufferings  and  of  how 
the  Virgin  wandered  all  over  the  world  to  see  them  and  pleaded 
for  the  sufferers  before  God. 


1G6       THE  ftUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

detail  to  God  everything  that  had  happened  in  the 
house  during  the  day: 

'  Thou  knowest  this  Thyself,  Lord,  that  everyone 
wants  to  get  the  best  of  everything.  Well,  that's 
why  Michael  wants  to  remain  at  his  father's  dye- 
works.  Going  over  to  the  other  side  of  the  river 
to  the  new  works  he  considers  unfair  to  himself; 
the  business  over  there  is  untested,  the  place  is 
new.  Meanwhile,  his  father  l  prefers  Jacob  to  stay 
with  him.  Well,  is  it  a  nice  thing  to  like  one  child 
more  than  another  ?  The  old  man  is  obstinate — 
that's  what  it  is.  Wouldst  Thou  not  explain  all 
that  to  him,  0  Lord  ?  Send  him  a  dream — such  a 
one  as  he  may  understand  how  he  should  decide 
the  business  between  his  children.' 

'  She  bows  to  the  earth,'  continues  Gor'ki, '  knocks 
her  brow  against  the  bare  floor,  then,  raising  herself, 
again  speaks  in  a  persuasive  tone  full  of  meaning : 

'  Wilt  Thou  not  send  some  joy  to  Barbara  ?  In 
what  way  has  she  made  Thee  angry  ?  Why  is  she 
a  greater  sinner  than  the  others  ?  It  won't  do :  she 
is  young,  strong,  yet  has  got  to  live  in  sadness. 
And,  Lord,  remember  Gregory :  his  eyes  are  getting 
worse  and  worse.  Why,  if  he  goes  finally  blind, 
he  will  have  to  go  a-begging — quite  a  wrong  thing  ! 
He  has  wasted  all  his  strength  on  grandfather,  but 
grandfather  won't  help,  will  he  ?  ...  0  Lord, 
Lord.  .  .  .' 

1  Granny's  husband. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       167 

'  She  remains  silent  for  a  while,  obediently  bending 
down,  looking  as  if  she  were  asleep  or  frozen,  then — 

'What  else?'  And  she  tries  to  think,  knitting 
her  enormous  brows :  '  Have  mercy,  Lord,  and  save 
all  orthodox  people — me,  too,  the  wretched  fool 
that  I  am.  Thou  knowest,  I  sin  not  with  wicked- 
ness, but  because  of  my  stupid  brain  !'  Finally 
she  adds  lovingly,  with  perfect  satisfaction :  '  All 
is  known  to  Thee,  rodnoy.  .  .  .  Thou  knowest 
everything,  Bat'ushka  !' 

By  the  way,  the  reader  will  see  here  that  this 
special  twist  to  the  word  '  father '  (bat'ushka)  is 
applied  by  simple-minded  people  even  in  address- 
ing God,  as  well  as  the  favourite  caressive  adjective 
rodnoy  (see  p.  59) 

Really  and  truly  there  exist  no  intonations  in 
the  English  speech  for  such  a  prayer.  It  needs 
the  nuances  of  a  Russian  voice,  and  then  it  may  be 
appreciated  even  by  a  foreigner's  ear. 

Nearly  every  morning  Granny  would  find  new 
words  of  touching  admiration  for  the  Virgin.  .  .  . 
'  Thou  pure  beauty,  source  of  joy,  heart  of  the 
heavens,  dear  golden  Sun,  blossoming  apple-tree !' 

No  wonder  a  powerful  creative  impulse  of  speech 
was  implanted  in  the  young  brain  of  her  grandson, 
who  grew  up  at  her  side  during  the  impressionable 
years  of  his  boyhood. 

Grandfather's  God  seemed  to  be  of  a  different 
nature.  Sometimes  the  old  man  used  to  come  into 


168       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

Granny's  bedroom  before  she  had  finished  her 
morning  prayer.  He  would  listen  for  a  while,  and, 
later  on,  grumble  sarcastically : 

'  Haven't  I  taught  you  over  and  over  again, 
you  oak-head,  how  you  should  pray  ?  But  you 
keep  to  your  own  silly  way  like  a  heretic  !  I  am 
astonished  God  can  stand  you.' 

6  He  will  understand,'  Granny  answered,  with 
perfect,  smiling  conviction.  '  He  will  make  it  out, 
whatever  we  tell  Him.' 

God  was  so  near  and  human  to  her  mind  that 
once  or  twice,  as  the  constant  quarrelling  between 
her  old  husband  and  his  sons  grew  to  an  appalling 
extent,  she  even  asked  Him : 

'  Lord,  Lord,  has  Thy  clear  mind  failed  Thee  in 
the  case  of  my  children  ?' 

And,  in  her  usual  talks  with  her  grandson,  she 
once  thoughtfully  remarked,  helping  herself  from 
her  snuff-box :  '  Methinks,  there  may  be  cases  when 
even  He  can't  make  out  whose  fault  it  is.  He 
must  be  looking  and  looking  down  at  the  earth, 
watching  us  all,  and  at  some  odd  moments  He  is 
sure  to  burst  into  sobs:  "Men,  men!  My  dear, 
beloved  men  !  .  .  .  How  sorry  I  feel  for  you !"  .  .  .' 
And  she  would  shed  tears,  making  that  God  of  hers 
still  nearer  to  the  future  author. 

But  that  same  dear  old  funny  fat  Granny  was 
the  same  person  who  stopped  the  great  disaster  of 
the  fire  which  broke  out  at  the  dye-works.  Being 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       169 

interrupted  in  the  midst  of  her  night  prayers,  she, 
nevertheless,  never  lost  her  presence  of  mind,  and 
instinctively  took  charge  of  the  whole  business. 
She,  herself,  brought  out  of  the  flames  a  bottle  of 
copper-sulphate  with  her  own  hands,  and  made 
everyone  work  likewise,  at  the  same  high  pressure. 
When  the  fire  was  finally  extinguished  her  husband 
was  for  once  proud  of  her,  and,  stroking  her  big, 
round  shoulder,  said:  '  Sometimes  God  is  merci- 
ful to  thee,  and  gives  thee  a  great  understanding 
for  an  hour  or  so.' 

Kecent  letters  from  Russia  describing  the  excel-  *™i3Q  for 
lent  work  of   the  nimble,  strong  peasant  women  Russian 
in  our  cornfields  and  hayfields — which  they  take  as 
a  matter  of  course — remind  me  of  the  praise  on  the 
part  of  this  coarse  man  two  generations  ago.     The 
attitude  of  the  peasant  men  towards  their  women 
has  entirely  altered.     Their  efficiency  is  heartily 
appreciated,  and  men  praise  them  nowadays  in  a 
way  which  is  crisp  and  snappy : 

Molod  etzbaba  ! l  (See  p.  42). 

Or'eh  baba  !  Nut  of  a  baba  ! 

Pul'a  baba  !  Bullet  of  a  baba  ! 

Ogon'  baba  !  Fire  of  a  baba  ! 

Bogatyr'  baba  !  (Bogatyr'  being  the  Old  Russian  word  for 
a  hero,  and  meaning  one  '  rich  of,'  i.e., 
endowed  with  wonderful  qualities. 
Nowadays  the  expression  '  grey  bo- 
gatyri,'  meaning  modest  bogatyri,  is 
frequently  and  lovingly  applied  to  the 
Russian  soldiers. 

1  In  the  case  of  an  unmarried  girl  the  word  baba  is  replaced 
by  d'evka  (p.  41). 


170       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

This  point  takes  me  back  for  a  moment  to 
Gor'ki's  Granny — it  is  very  difficult  to  part  with 
her !  the  only  thing  she  was  afraid  of  in  the 
veritable  hell  of  her  husband's  home  was  black 
beetles.  She  could  discern  the  approach  of  one 
even  at  a  distance,  in  the  dark;  and  many  a  time 
her  grandson  had  to  get  out  of  their  bed  at  her 
ardent  request,  and  creep  about  the  floor  on  all 
fours,  whilst  she  was  waiting  breathlessly  with  the 
blanket  right  over  her  head. 

'  Why  art  thou  afraid  of  black  beetles  ?'  the  boy 
would  ask  her. 

And  she  would  give  the  clear  answer : 

'  Why,  because  I  can't  understand  what  they  are 
made  for.  All  they  do  is  to  creep,  creep,  creep — 
all  over  the  place  !  Good  God  has  given  every 
moth  its  task;  wood-louse  is  there  to  indicate  that 
the  place  is  damp;  the  bug  to  show  that  the  walls 
are  unclean ;  if  lice  attacks  someone  it  means  that 
he  is  going  to  be  ill.  Everything  is  clear,  but  these 
beasts  —  tarakany  —  who  can  explain  what  kind 
of  power  there  is  within  them,  and  what  do  they 
come  for !' 

In  concluding  my  pages  about  Gor'ki's  speech 
and  that  of  his  characters,  I  must  give  the  literal 
translation  of  some  extracts  from  a  book  of  his,  so 
bold  and  natural  in  their  definition.  I  wonder  if 
they  will  find  their  way  to  the  innermost  hearing 
of  my  reader.  .  .  . 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       171 

'  The  stillness  of  the  night  stroked  (my)  heart 
with  her  warm,  hairy  hand.  Somewhere  flared  up  a 
human  voice.  Everything  was  lovingly  intensified 
by  the  responsive  silence.  ...  A  drunken  shriek 
boiled  up  in  the  street.' 

Or:  '  The  Works  became  sick  of  chewed  people, 
and  they  flowed  in  a  black  stream  through  the 
opened  black  mouth  (of  the  Works).1  A  white 
dishevelled  wind  (of  a  snow-storm)  was  flaring  up 
and  down  the  streets,  driving  the  people  into  their 
houses.' 

Or:  '  Grandfather  bristled  with  his  golden  hair 
and  beard.' 

And  here  is  a  paragraph  in  the  words  of  the 
grandfather  of  Gor'ki's,  who  was  in  his  youth  a 
burldk  on  the  Volga,  towing  with  other  harnessed 
men  immense  barges  for  thousands  of  miles  against 
the  current: 

'  One  of  the  fellows  would  let  his  song  come  The 
soaring  out  of  his  heart.     The  others  would  join  speech  as 
in  with  him — and  one  suddenly  felt  as  (one  does 
when)  the  frost  gives  thee  a  good  slap  on  the  back — 
and  the  whole  river  seemed  to  flow  faster  and  faster, 
as  if  it  were  going  to  rear  and  rise  on  its  hind  legs 
right  up  to  the  clouds  !' 

'  What  nonsense  !'  is  very  likely  the  impression 
of  a  literary  English  mind,  but  our  peasant  has 

1  The  explanatory  English  words  which  are  not  needed  in 
Russian  are  given  in  brackets. 


172       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

boundless  imagination,  our  writer  a  carte  blanche 
for  depicting  it,  and  our  reader  the  capacity  for 
enjoying  it. 

***** 

The  evoiu-     Dostoyevski  finally  moulded  his  zav'et  (p.  157) 
Dostoyev-  as  he  neared  the  end  of  his  literary  career  which 

ski's  out- 
look,        was  really  an  incessant  torment  of  inward  searching. 

At  its  beginning,  when  his  life  was  granted  to  him 
at  the  last  moment  on  the  scaffold  platform,1  and 
he  was  sent  to  the  Siberian  mines,  his  attitude 
towards  life  was  a  sweeping  revolt  against  humanity 
and  its  destiny,  as  he  then  saw  them.  He  lived 
through  that  period  of  spiritual  despondency 
(toska),  which  branched  off  into  Karamazov- 
shchina  (see  p.  133): 

1  Man  loves  destruction  and  chaos  to  the  verge 
of  passion.  .  .  .  Man  needs  exclusively  the  free- 
dom of  his  own  willing.  .  .  .  He  will  curse  the 
whole  world — which  is  his  only  prerogative  amongst 
living  creatures — and,  doing  so,  he  may  perhaps 
achieve  the  consciousness  of  being  more  than  a 
piano-key.  .  .  .  Life  is  pain,  life  is  fear.  .  .  . 
There  can  be  no  solving  of  problems,  no  final 
achievements  for  humanity,  because  these  would 
mean  the  end  of  pain  and  of  struggle  which  are 
man's  only  reason  for  existence.  Achievement 
would  be  like  two  and  two  makes  four,  and  two 

1  He  gives  a  marvellous  description  of  these  moments  by 
the  mouth  of  the  '  Idiot.' 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       173 

and  two  makes  four  is  certainly  the  beginning  of 
death,  gospoda,  and  is  not  life  !' 

But  the  years  in  '  The  House  of  the  Dead  ' 
(Siberian  miners'  prison)  and  further  insight  into 
life  have  gradually  brought  the  torture  of  Dosto- 
yevski's  searching  spirit  to  the  conclusion  that 
'  Man  can  love  not  welfare  alone :  he  can  equally 
love  suffering.'  ...  '  All  that  is  left  to  man  is  to 
love  his  pain  and  his  suffering.'  Here  is  the  gist  of 
Dostoyevski's  religious  mysticism  on  the  waves  of 
which  he  has  finally  launched  his  soul  on  its  way 
to  Eternity :  the  joy  of  suffering.  Hence  his  char- 
acters throbbing  with  the  reality  of  such  joy:  the 
Idiot,  Son'a  Marmeladova — the  Queen  of  Suffering 
—Father  Zoslma,  Al'osha,  Shatov.  In  them  Dos- 
toyevski  is  essentially  Eussian. 

In  the  first  phase  of  his  evolution — the  one  of 
burning  revolt  against  the  gloom  of  everything — 
he  may  be  called  the  forerunner  of  Nietzsche. 
Nietzsche's  ideas  can  be  seen  as  though  at  the 
farther  end  of  a  telescope  through  the  conviction 
of  Ivan  Karamazov  that '  everything  is  permitted.' 

Also  through  the  striking  pages  of  Ivan's 
trying  to  explain  to  the  idealist  Al'osha  that  no 
one  has  the  right  of  being  beautiful  when  all  the 
world  is  drowned  in  filth.  But  in  Nietzsche  there 
are  no  traces  of  the  extremely  Eussian  childlike 
faith  of  Dmitri  Karamazov,  expressed  in  the  lines : 
'  There  (in  prison)  we  shall  rise  up  to  joy,  without 


174       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

which  neither  man  nor  God  can  exist,  because 
God  gives  joy,  it  is  His  prerogative.  .  .  .  We 
underground  creatures,  we  shall  sing  glorious 
hymns  to  God  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth.' 

Wholesale  repudiation  is  as  utterly  Kussian  as 
this  capacity  for  wholehearted  mystic  joy.  Both 
result  from  passionate  '  searching  for  Christ '  and 
from  the  Russian  incapacity  for  compromise. 
Even  Smerd'akov,  a  type  of  concentrated  mean- 
ness, cunning  and  vulgarity,  says :  '  No  one  in  our 
day  can  shove  mountains  into  the  sea — except 
perhaps  some  one  man  in  the  world  or,  at  the  most, 
two,  and  these  most  likely  are  saving  their  souls  in 
secret  somewhere  in  Egyptian  desert.' 

At  this  the  old  cynic  Karamazov  cries  in  delight : 
'  Stay  !  so  you  do  suppose  that  there  are  two  who 
can  move  mountains  ?  Ivan,  make  a  note  of  it: 
there  you  have  the  Russian  all  over.' 

Again,  Dostoyevski's  aristocratic  atheist  and 
individualist  to  the  marrow  of  his  bones  declares: 
'  If  Truth1  existed  outside  Christ  and  not  within 
Him,  I  would  stand  up  by  Christ  and  not  by 
Truth.' 

All  this  Russian  mystical  philosophizing,  from 
the  singing  of  hymns  by  the  '  underground  crea- 
tures '  to  the  '  contemplating  of  precipices,'  has 
been  instinctively  laid  down  by  Dostoyevski  as 
the  foundation-stone  for  all  modern  Russian  phi- 

1  The  Old  Russian  istina  in  this  case — not  prdvda. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       175 

losophy,  poetry  and  religious  aspirations.  His 
titanic  creative  power  is  calling  forth  the  inner- 
most voices  of  revolt,  of  nadryv  (see  p.  150),  and 
of  religious  individualism.  All  three  are  essenti- 
ally national,  and  that  is  why  the  zav'ety  of  Dos- 
toyevski's  go  deeper  with  us  than  even  Turgenev's 
and  Tolstoy's.  The  literature  of  this  century  is 
throbbing  with  them.  It  is  often  called  the  litera-  A  dreary 

concep- 

ture  of  podpolye — which  is  Dostoyevski's  title  for  tion. 
one    of    his    gloomiest    creations    saturated    with 
despair.     It  has  been  translated  as  Notes  from  the 
Underworld  and  Notes  from  the  Cellarage.     Neither 
is  quite  correct.     Both  cellarage  and  underworld 
allow  the  conception  of  some  sort  of  animal  or 
vegetable  life  in  them ;  but  podpolye — literally  mean- 
ing under  the  floor — stands  for  depicting  the  state 
of  mind  and  of  breath,  as  it  were,  which  would  be 
the  only  possible  one  between  the  two  layers  of 
the  floor,  as  floors  are  built  in  Eussia.     One  can 
well  imagine  that  state.     Breathing  in  it  would 
be    unbearable    torment    physically;    thinking— 
spiritually.     Well,  the  works  by  the  latest  Eussian  Dosto- 
authors  really  are  unconscious  seedlings  of  Dos-  influence 
toyevski's  first  phase  of  evolution,  when  he  felt  Russian 
himself  in  a  podpolye  before  arriving  at  an  outlet 
by  way  of  the  joy  of  suffering.     But  what  these 
modern  authors  write  they  write  with  the  blood 
of  their  hearts.    To  quote  a  very  lucky  expression — 
'  There  is  no  bourgeoisie  about  the  Eussians'  reli- 


176       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

gious  aspirations. '  The  whole  of  Andreyev's  literary 
Self  clings  to  the  question  once  laid  down  by  Dos- 
toyevski :  '  Is  it  possible  that  I  am  created  as  I  am, 
with  the  only  aim  of  leading  me  to  the  conclusion 
that  creating  me  was  but  a  cheat  ? ' 

Andreyev  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
is  no  way  out — nothing  but  a  dead  wall  placed 
before  him  and  the  rest  of  humanity. 

'  Andreyev  ought  not  to  be  a  writer,'  says  a  promi- 
nent modern  critic.  '  A  writer  is  a  priest  of  art, 
and  art's  aim  is  to  retouch,  to  paint,  to  screen  life's 
cheating  in  most  artful  ways.  That  is  why  art  is 
eternal:  it  will  go  on  striving  for  its  aim  for  ever 
without  being  able  to  attain  it.' 

From  this  point  of  view  a  group  of  the  latest 
Kussian  writers  are  not  artists  at  all !  The  idea 
which  took  even  Dostoyevski  many  pages  of  throb- 
bing sentences  is  flung  into  the  face  of  the  content- 
and-sleek  humanity  in  the  one  phrase  of  Andreyev's 
prostitute : 

'  It  is  a  shame  to  be  good  !' 

Her  life  is  an  eternal  mental  agony  which  bars 
the  whole  world  from  her  sight-  and  Andreyev 
comes  with  her  to  the  maddening  conclusion  that 
being  pure,  clean  and  good  is  a  prerogative  of  only  a 
few,  and  therefore  they  should  not  allow  them- 
selves that  luxury.  All  must  go  to  the  fatal  wall 
and  be  crushed  against  it. 

'  If  there  is  no  Paradise  for  every  one,  then  I 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       177 

reject  it  for  myself.  It  would  not  be  a  paradise, 
but  merely  piggishness.  .  .  .  Come,  relief  and  bliss 
of  realized  helplessness !  Welcome,  inevitable 
darkness,  which  will  come  to  replace  the  deceit  of 
life  !  Let  us  drink  for  the  extinction  of  all  lights ! 
.  .  .  Drink,  Dark  People,1  drink  for  the  Dark- 
ness to  come  to  all  alive  !  .  .  .' 

Nothing  could  have  a  greater  extinguishing 
power  than  such  ideas,  but  the  balance  between 
them  and  '  the  sleek  majority  '  still  rests:  the  world 
rolls  on  !  And  even  the  vehement  Kussians  are 
not  driven  to  wholesale  self-extermination  by  the 
fire  of  a  genius  of  despair  !  One  suffers  for  him, 
one  admires  his  power  of  frankness  and  the  spon- 
taneity of  his  spiritual  searchings — but  they  do  not 
kill  the  second  ingredient  of  a  typical  Eussian 
mind:  idealism.  These  two  extremes  must  needs 
go  together  because  they  replace  the  balance  of 
placidity. 

It  seems  a  relief  to  dwell  for  a  while  on  the  power 
of  Andreyev's  speech  alone.  He  is  another  eagle 
creating  definitions  with  the  beating  of  his  wings. 
To  quote  a  few  lines  of  his : 

'  A  whisper  of  silence  penetrated  to  his  brain.  .  .  . 
Delighted  Sleep  grinned  happily,  placed  his  hairy 
cheek  against  his,  gently  put  one  arm  round  him 
and  tickled  his  knees  with  his  warm  hand,  then 

1  In  the  original  '  dark  people  '  are  addressed  as  Darkness, 
which  adds  to  the  power  of  the  phrase. 

12 


178       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

put  Ms  fluffy  head  on  his  breast.  .  .  .  Hairy 
Sleep  gave  a  victorious  whoop,  embraced  him  in  a 
hot  embrace  and,  in  deep  silence,  with  abated 
breath,  they  floated  out  into  the  bottomless,  trans- 
parent depths.  .  .  .  There  was  the  emptiness  of 
eternity.' 

Dostoyevski's  love  of  suffering  is  absent  from  the 

minds  of  younger  writers,  and  therefore  they  do 

not    conquer    our    hearts    altogether.     They    are 

priests  only  of  the  dark  altar  of  Seeking. 

Feodor          Feodor   Sologub   finds   his   religion   in    Death. 

Sologub — 

the  She  stands  sweet  before  him  as  the  only  clear  goal 

of  death,  and  solution,  the  only  entity  that  can  be  achieved 
and  the  only  knowledge.  This  religion  permeates 
the  whole  of  Sologub 's  creations.  He  makes 
Death  the  only  beauty — and  succeeds  in  giving  her 
a  fascination.  The  sweet  triolettes  about '  beloved 
north,  beloved  rain  !'  given  in  this  book  (p.  93) 
are  his.  It  suffices  a  Kussian  to  repeat  these  lines 
to  himself,  giving  him  a  chance  to  visualize  them — 
and  he  begins  to  feel  as  if  the  sighing  moss,  the  rain 
and  the  dripping,  trembling  birches  were  really 
the  most  loveable  of  all  Nature's  charms. 

But  Sologub  goes  much  further  than  Gogol'  and 
Chehov  in  his  love  of  sadness.  There  is  a  sweeping 
gloom  about  Sologub's  philosophy: 

'  The  imperfection  of  human  nature  has  caused 
the  mixing  in  one  goblet  of  the  sweetest  joys  of 
love  with  the  base  fascination  of  lust  and  thus  has 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       179 

poisoned  the  drink  of  life  with  shame  and  pain— 
and  with  the  longing  for  shame  and  pain.' 
He  cuts  the  knot  by  worshipping  death,  but  this 
philosophy  is  not  typically  Kussian.  It  is  only  his 
freedom  of  deciding  for  himself  on  an  individual- 
istic religion  which  is  Russian  indeed. 
As  compared  to  the  rejection  of  everything,  a  A  typical 

T  .11.  T  sacrament. 

much  more  universal  and  instinctively  beloved 
sacrament  of  the  Russian  soul  is  confession: 
pokayaniye.  We  don't  necessarily  mean  by  this 
definition  a  confession  of  one  certain  crime,  but 
the  readiness  to  admit  all  one's  faults  and  evil 
thoughts  altogether  —  the  absence  of  shame  in 
doing  so  and  the  willingness  to  be  scrutinized  and 
judged  by  others.  The  best  illustration  of  this 
psychological  point  is  the  Russian  word  for  good- 
bye. It  literally  means — forgive  me,  and  nothing  The  fc5ue 
else  but  forgive  me.  In  one  of  the  aspects  of  the 
verb  it  is  prost'i  or  prost'lt'e  (singular  or  plural), 
and  in  the  other  proshchdy  or  proshchdyt'e  (singular 
or  plural).  The  so-called  lower  classes  invariably 
use  this  expression  for  good-bye  when  parting  from 
their  beloved  ones,  from  their  parents  or  masters, 
or  even  from  their  helpers.  It  sounds  grave  and 
elating,  in  spite  of  its  seemingly  humiliating  nature. 
Russians  put  quite  a  different  note  into  their  voices 
compared  to  the  English  when  they  say  good-bye— 
whether  it  is  prost'it'e  or  proshcJiayt'e.  It  is  much 
more  serious;  and  people  involuntarily  use  the  first, 


180       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

being  the  gravest  of  the  two  forms,  when  the  cir- 
cumstances are  in  the  least  grave.  The  departing 
cook  or  nurse,  whether  she  feels  herself  in  the 
wrong  or  not,  will  usually  say  to  her  mistress, 
'prost'it'e,  baryn'a.'  The  '  prost'l,  bat'ushka 
barin ' l  is  altogether  devoid  of  its  nature  in  'Good- 
bye, sir':  in  Russian  it  is  extremely  natural  in 
its  affectionate  patriarchal  tone.2  To  this  is  very 
often  added — between  equals,  too — another  typical 
expression:  N'e  pomindyt'e  llhom  ! — which  means 
'  Don't  remember  me  by  the  wrong  I  have  done 
you.'  Man  and  woman  at  the  moment  of  parting 
after  years  of  mutually  painful  intimacy  and  mis- 
understandings are  sure  to  tell  each  other  with  a 
feeling  of  gratitude  for  what  there  had  been  beautiful 
between  them  and  with  a  feeling  of  sorrow  for  having 
hurt  each  other:  '  Prost'l !  N'e  pominay  lihom  !" 
The  youngest  of  Alexander  II. 's  assassins,  a 
fellow  of  nineteen,  when  being  driven  to  the  place 
of  execution,  stood  up  on  the  dreary  and  clattering 
high  vehicle  and,  moving  along  the  streets  of  Petro- 
grad,  bowed  low  to  the  crowds  many  a  time,  re- 
peating: '  Prost'it'e  !'  It  instinctively  combines  a 
final  good-bye  with  a  pleading  for  forgiveness. 
That  is  why  we  more  often  say  at  an  ordinary 
parting,  do-svidanya,  au  revoir,  than  proshchdyt'e. 
The  distinction  here  is  still  more  acute  than  between 

1  See  p.  50. 

2  Literally:  Forgive,  mistress.     Forgive,  father -master. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       181 

the  French  au  revoir  and  adieu :  there  is  little  hope 
of  seeing  each  other  again  in  the  word  proshchayt'e. 

The  usual  reply  amongst  the  peasantry  (and  on 
grave  occasions  amongst  all  classes  of  Russians) 
to  the  prost'l  said  at  parting  is — Bog  prost'ti=God 
will  forgive  you !  Here  again  is  the  typical 
abstinence  from  passing  judgment  on  other  people. 
Even  when  asked  for  forgiveness  the  Russian 
doesn't  consider  himself  in  the  right  to  judge 
another  at  all;  and  this  truly  national  answer 
means:  God  will  forgive  you:  it  is  not  my  busi- 
ness to  judge  even  in  the  case  of  your  having  done 
me  harm. 

I  wonder  whether  I  have  made  it  clear  that  there 
is  no  humiliation  in  all  this,  but  rather  a  quiet 
courage  of  admitting  one's  unavoidable  demerits 
and  mistakes.  There  is  something  characteristi- 
cally breezy  about  the  Russian  psychology ;  along- 
side with  this  modest  demand  prosfife  there  exists  A  praise 

for  one 's 

a  definition  which  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  foes, 
of  all :  it  is  lihoy  (adjective),  and  llho  (adverb),  which 
are  never  conveyed  in  the  translations  by  any- 
thing approaching  them:  nothing  under  a  whole 
explanatory  sentence  could  convey  the  distinct, 
sharp  outlines  of  this  most  Russian  definition. 
In  South-Russian  the  noun  llho  means  wrong  or 
misfortune ;  in  Russian  proper  it  is  not  in  use  now, 
although  originally  it  also  must  have  stood  for 
'  wrong  '  pure  and  simple.  But  the  point  is,  that 


182       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

at  some  time  in  the  depth  of  the  ages  the  adjective 
deriving  from  that  noun,  lihoy,  has  acquired  an 
additional  meaning:  the  latter  stands  for  the 
acknowledgment  of  elegance  and  smartness  in 
inflicting  wrong — of  a  courageous  way  of  doing 
harm  !  It  is  really  a  praise  for  those  who  are 
doing  cruel  things  brilliantly,  although  with  the 
intention  of  harming  you.  .  .  .  There  the  foreign 
writers  who  like  to  speak  of  Russia  with  their 
hands  clasped  piously  are  bound  to  shut  their  eyes 
and  ears:  there  is  much  in  the  Russians  beyond 
their  mysticism  and  even  beyond  the  human 
warmth  of  heart;  it  is  just  this  complexity  that 
makes  them  interesting,  because  the  complexity 
itself  comes  from  the  gift  of  seeing  things  from  ever 
so  many  points  of  view.  To  those  who  really 
know  them,  the  Russians  are  much  more  interesting 
than  they  appear  in  Mr.  Stephen  Graham's  de- 
scriptions. He  profoundly  admires  them,  but  his 
point  of  view  is  growing  narrower  and  narrower 
with  each  of  his  books.  I  have  heard  many 
Russians  who  have  read  them  apply  to  him,  with 
good-natured  condescension,  our  adjective  pr'a- 
molineyny  —  which  means  '  running  along  as 
straight  as  a  straight  line  ' ;  it  does  not  imply  the 
idea  of  deep,  many-sided  observation. 

Yes,  lihoy  is  an  essentially  Russian  epithet,  and 
a  most  breezy  one  too  !  It  makes  you  visualize 
a  foe  whose  art  commands  involuntary  admiration— 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       183 

lihoy  vrag  (vrag=foe).  With  the  kazaki  (  =  Cos- 
sacks), it  is  a  fine  praise :  it  is  the  ambition  of  every 
one  of  them  to  be  a  lilwy  kazdk ;  and  the  combina- 
tion of  these  two  words  instantly  draws  a  picture 
of  a  slim,  wiry  figure  on  horseback,  as  if  chiselled 
with  his  animal  out  of  one  piece  of  steel — one  who 
will  not  be  moved  either  in  warfare  nor  in  less 
dignified  forms  of  struggle  (the  latter  of  which, 
we  hope,  will  never  take  place  again  !  .  .  .).  But 
there  is  a  distinct  touch  of  something  aboriginally- 
poetical,  aboriginally-handsome  in  this  praise  for 
a  war-like  attitude,  and  probably  this  is  the  reason 
why  I  have  not  once  come  across  the  epithet  lihoy 
attached  to  '  a  German  '  (n'emetz)  as  yet,  in  spite 
of  the  very  richly  coloured,  very  local  and  very 
national  Russian  war-literature:  somehow  the 
Germans,  as  a  foe,  do  not  call  forth  ancient  poetical 
conceptions — even  in  inflicting  wrong  ! 

With  a  shade  of  bitterness  added  to  it,  the  same 
adjective  is  applied  to  merciless  Fate  —  lihaya 
svd'ba  (fern.) ;  or  to  a  brilliantly  executed  (!)  cruel 
act — lihoye  d'elo  :  again  there  must  be  the  element 
of  aboriginal  daring  in  it,  pure  and  simple,  to 
make  that  brilliancy  fall  under  this  definition; 
for  instance  a  murder  or  a  pillage,  when  no  traces 
of  the  criminals  can  be  found.  This  reminds  me, 
by  the  way,  of  another  expression  defining  the 
art  in  crime,  however  horrible  that  sounds  !  It 
refers  solely  to  those  wicked  deeds,  the  authors  of 


184       THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

which  cannot  be  found  out,  despite  any  research 
and  investigation;  in  such  instances  one  says: 
tut  komdr  vosa  n'e  podtochit  I  It  means — '  there 
is  nothing  here  on  which  a  gnat  could  sharpen  his 
nose  !'  i.e.,  not  even  a  weeniest  thing  that  would 
show  itself  on  the  beautifully-smooth  surface. 

The  adverb  liho  goes  mainly  with  the  '  diable- 
m'emporte  '  kind  of  manners,  conveying  the  idea 
of  a  smart  dash-and-go  before  anything  else;  for 
instance,  to  sing  liho  means  to  sing  so  that  every- 
one is  bound  to  listen — whether  one  wants  it  or 
not;  liho  sMchet  troyka  means — a  troyka  is  flying 
headlong  in  a  magnificent  way  .  .  .  and  the  foot- 
goers  should  look  out  sharp  ! 

The  same  adverb  is  gaily  applied  in  homely 
matters:  a  bright  Eussian  fellow,  brimming  over 
with  un-used  strength  and  ready  to  challenge 
laughingly  the  whole  of  the  world,  is  very  much 
apt  to  shift  his  cap  to  the  back  of  his  head,  side- 
ways :  this,  combined  with  his  mood  reflected  on  his 
young  face,  and  with  the  front  tufts  of  his  hair 
sticking  out  from  under  the  cap  with  that  same 
roguish  challenge,  sends  for  a  second  through  the 
mind  of  those  who  meet  him,  the  expression: 
shdpka  liho  na-b'ekr'en' !  There  is  no  verb  in  it, 
only  the  noun  shapka  (  =  cap),  and  two  adverbs 
which  must  need  go  together  on  this  occasion, 
because  the  liho  means  the  very  spirit  with  which 
a  fellow  would  shift  his  cap  na-b'ekr'en'  (  =  hat 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       185 

a-cock):  you  wouldn't  do  it  unless  you  felt  liho, 
would  you  ? 

We  meet  lots  of  them  who  do,  in  our  town  and 

country. 

*  *  *  *  * 

Before  finishing  with  the  dark  colours  in  the  The  mystic 

woman- 
writings  of  our  youngest  authors,  I  must  mention  poet. 

Zinaida  Gippius.  This  woman  certainly  has  a 
more  marked  stamp  of  a  genius  on  her  brow  than 
any  of  the  other  modern  writers.  Despite  her  un- 
Kussian  name,  she  was  born  for  that  Kussian 
vehemence  which  brings  her,  alas,  nothing  but  pain. 
The  brightest  of  all  her  poems  is  the  one  previously 
mentioned  (p.  Ill), '  Kussia  speaking  to  her  Singer.' 
It  is  not  only  quaintly  poetic  in  its  form,  but 
typical  in  its  spirit,  akin  to  Dostoyevski's  spirit: 

*  Who  will  love  my  sins  ail-forgivingly  ?  .  .  . 
Love  the  tall  weeds  alongside  my  walls, 
Love  my  poor  drunken  peasant !" 

But  it  is  her  uncanny  nationalism  which  makes 
her  speak  thus;  here  she  yields  herself  wholly  to 
her  love  of  country,  almost  uncanny  in  its  inten- 
sity; because  her  general  attitude  towards  human- 
ity's existence  in  this  planet  is  all-round  helpless- 
ness and  condemnation  itself. 

I  feel  inclined  to  startle  my  reader  straight  away 
by  a  literal  translation  of  the  most  extraordinary 
of  her  poems — '  Reality  ' ;  in  other  verses  of  hers 
he  will  undoubtedly  trace  what  is  called  a  poetic 


186       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

vein,  while  '  Keality,'  I  think,  would  be  called  a  poem 
nowhere  on  earth  except  in  Russia  !  It  needs  the 
Russian  passion  for  exploring  the  new;  and  fear 
of  novelty  is  the  last  thing  that  could  be  expected 
from  Zinaida  Gippius. 

An  extra-  REALITY. 

ordinary 

poem.  Sticky  and  filthy,  fraudulent,  horrible, 

Densely-stupid,  ghastly,  terrible, 
Slowly-cruel,  void  of  honesty, 
Shameless,  slippery,  mean  and  stifling, 
Shamming  happiness,  hiding  misery, 
Vulgar,  hollow,  sensual,  cowardly, 
Sodden  and  stagnant,  slimy  and  obstinate, 
Death  or  life  undeserving  equally, 
Slavish,  contemptible,  dreary,  decaying, 
Glutinous,  selfish,  infernal,  monotonous, 
Still  in  its  impudence,  dismal  in  quietness, 
Sleepily-heavy,  wickedly  artful, 
Cold  like  a  corpse,  worse  than  nonentity, 
Worse  than  unbearable — false — false — deceitful  ! 

With  an  impressionable  mind  it  may  bring  one 
to  the  verge  of  wiping  cold  perspiration  oil  one's 
brow  !  And  it  does  now  and  again — with  the  Rus- 
sians. But  I  am  not  anxious  about  my  English 
reader.  He  will  either  laugh  or  pucker  his  nose. 

I  here  feel  tempted  to  ask  a  solution  to  the  prob- 
lem— Why  do  the  English  find  a  '  charm  '  in  the 
Russians  ?  Our  ever-searching,  ever-analyzing 
national  character,  '  sadness  which  is  joy,'  joy 
which  is  exaltation,  burning  the  candle  at  both 
ends — and  melting  it  in  the  middle,  ever  longing 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       187 

for  prostor,  headlong  plunging  into  Karamazov- 
shchina  including  both  torment  through  God  and 
torment  through  no  God — all  this  must  be  per- 
fectly strange  to  the  well-balanced  British  mind. 
But  it  is  possible  that  while  you  outwardly  apply 
the  epithet  '  charming  '  you  inwardly  substitute 
for  it '  amusing  '  ?  .... 

N'ichevo  !  This  does  not  hurt  us.  We  make 
sincere  friends  all  the  same,  wherever  we  meet 
something  rodnoye  (p.  59)  in  the  English. 

I  wonder  whether  a  picture  of  the  slowly-falling 
masses  of  snow,  and  its  impression  on  Zinaida 
Glppius,  will  attract  those  who  are  used  to  the  ever- 
lasting green  grass  of  this  snug  little  island : 

SNOW.  Snow-the- 

wonderful. 

Again  it  falls,  miraculous  and  silent, 
Soaring,  circling,  settling  gently  down.  .  .  . 
Its  painless  fall  delights  my  thirsting  spirit, 
It  comes  reborn  of  nothing,  to  exist  awhile. 

It  re-appears,  a  stranger  sweet  as  ever, 
Oblivious  and  tempting  in  its  cold. 
I  always  wait  for  it — expecting  miracles, 
I  feel  it  near  to  me,  akin  in  unity. 

It  will  depart,  entrancing,  soundless,  stealthy; 
Its  loss  does  not  depress  me :  as  before 
I'll  wait.  ...     I  love  thy  touch,  my  gentle  one, 
My  only  one,  my  longed-for  ! 

And  still  it  falls — soft,  powerful,  unhurried, 

Its  conquest  filling  me  with  boundless  pride. 

Of  all  the  mysteries  of  earth,  thou,  Snow  the  wonderful, 

It's  thee  I  love,  thou  Master  of  my  mind  ! 


188       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

There  are  not  many  people  who  are  disturbed  by 
the  stillness  of  a  moonlit  night,  but  it  invariably 
upsets  our  woman  poet.  My  object  being  to  convey 
as  clearly  as  possible  the  psychological  keys  of  the 
Eussian  speech,  I  hope  the  English  reader  will  allow 
me  another  one  or  two  close  translations  of  her 
poems — in  spite  of  their  lack  of  classical  English ;  I 
can  follow  only  the  sense  and  the  rhythm — the  lilt. 

•  What  is  What  is  lacking  in  the  moonlight, 

thfmoon-  In  that  dim-blue  midnight  secret  ? 

light  ?'  In  the  stringless,  silent  music, 

In  the  sparkling  shine  of  desert  ? 

Gazing  at  it  leaves  me  longing, 

Love  in  moonlight  does  not  soothe  me, 

Beams  of  moonlight  sting  acutely, 

Hurt  so  coldly,  ever  wronging. 

'Midst  the  rays  of  shining  power 

I  am  powerless  and  dying.  .  .  . 

Oh,  if  wings  could  grow  from  moonlight 

That  I  could  go  flying — flying  !  .  .  . 

The  Eussian  language  allows  a  repetition  of  the 
words  freely.  The  English  reader  must  have 
noticed  it  in  the  everyday  speech  of  Dostoyevski's 
characters.  True,  with  him  they  repeat  more  than 
a  Eussian  under  ordinary  circumstances  does. 
But  then,  you  cannot  meet  whole  families  composed 
of — or  whole  drawing-rooms  filled  with — Dosto- 
yevski's people.  In  the  Eussian  original,  they 
speak  still  more  intensely  than  even  the  repetition 
°^  English  words  and  sentences  can  convey:  be- 
cause  We  have  several  conjunctions  quite  unknown 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       189 

in  the  English  speech,  which  carry  half  shades  of 
meaning  (for  instance,  a,  which  is  exactly  half-way 
between  the  meaning  of  the  '  and  '  and  of  the 
'but';  also  vprochem,  v'ed',  odndko,  razv'e — which 
do  not  exist  in  English  at  all,  and  are  always  trans- 
lated as  the  same  old  '  but '!  Also  a  number  of 
what  we  call  particles,  one-syllable  little  bits  of 
words,  which  serve  the  same  purpose.1  They  all 
come  in  with  the  repetition  of  words  constantly, 
and  the  difference  they  make  can  be  here  explained 
only  graphically.  When  the  English  translator 
is  reduced  to  repeating,  '  But  you  thought  so  ? 
You  thought  so  ?'  the  Russians,  and  especially 
Dostoyevski's  and  Andreyev's  Russians,  say: 
'  But  you  thought  so  ?  V'ed'  you  thought  je  so 
odnako  ?' 

All  these  je,  da,  to,  li,  by,  v'ed',  a,  d'e,  an,  chay, 
znay  give  whole  chords  of  colour  in  Russian,  sug- 
gesting doubt,  obstinacy,  sarcasm,  conviction,  etc., 
on  the  part  of  the  speaker — which  are  not  depicted 
in  any  other  words  and  therefore,  meeting  no 
equivalents  in  English,  inevitably  remain  untrans- 
latable. 

Without  dwelling  on  this  additional  technical 
difference,  I  just  want  to  point  out  the  manner  of 
mere  repetition  of  words,  which  does  not  actually 
emphasize  or  twist  their  meaning,  but  adds  quaint 

1  They  exist  to  some  extent  in  Greek,  as  well  as  some 
parallels  to  our  syllables  of  nuances. 


190       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

music  to  the  poetry.  The  prolific  poets  of  the  last 
two  decades,  Bal'mont  and  Val'eri  Br'ussov,  drop 
into  that  manner  frequently;  but  I  shall  try  and 
translate  another  little  poem  by  Zinaida  Gippius 
in  which  she  does  the  same.  In  Russian  it  sounds 
transparent,  lucid,  and  delicately,  daintily  tristful: 

My  window  is  high  above  the  ground, 

Above  the  ground, 
I  see  but  the  setting  sun  large  and  round, 

So  large  and  round. 
The  sky  looks  vast  and  indifferent, 

So  indifferent, 
It  takes  no  pity  on  my  heart, 

On  my  poor  heart. 
Alas,  I'm  dying  with  sadness  that's  gnawing  me, 

Gnawing  me, 
Longing  for  things  unknown  to  me, 

Unknown  to  me. 
Where  has  it  come  from  ?     I  cannot  grasp  it.  ... 

Cannot  grasp  it. 
I  am  drawn  by  things  which  have  not  passed  yet, 

Not  passed  yet. 
My  heart  is  praying  for  miracles, 

Miracles, 
High  above  earthly  pinnacles, 

Pinnacles  !  .  .  . 

A  It  is  easy  to  notice  that  with  all  her  Russian 

Russian's 

longing,  vehement  mentality,  Zinaida  Gippius  knows  not 
the  other  end  of  Russian  nature:  she  is  not 
given  the  joy  of  prostor,  the  delight  of  razmah 
and  razdolye — all  those  glorious  qualities  which 
make  a  Russian  one  with  the  land  and  which 
find  for  him  a  way  out  from  his  toska  through 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       191 

this  very  responsiveness  and  exuberance  of  vitality. 
Even    Dostoyevski's    love    for  the  '  underground 
creatures  '   and  an  atheist's  tenderness  for  '  the 
sticky  little  leaves  in  the  spring,'  as  well  as  Son'a's 
ardent  desire  that  the  man  whom  she  loves  should 
go  out  on  a  crossing  and  kneel  and  kiss  the  earth 
which  he  had  insulted  by  his  crime  and  confess 
about  it  aloud — even  these  sad  passions  result  from 
breadth  of  spirit.      It  is  this  breadth  which  has 
created  the  expressions  prostor,  razdolye,  razmah, 
udal' !  (pp.  25,  70,  71)  ...     Openness!    Freedom! 
Not  in  the  name  of  narrow  personal  comfort,  but  in 
the  name  of  acknowledging  each  of  one's  aspirations 
without  shrinking,  without  shirking,  without  fear  of 
ridicule,  without  false  shame.    The  mind  of  Zinaida 
Gippius  and  her  contemporaries  finds  its  way  only 
into  the  darkest  corners  of  reality.     They  are  blind 
to  the  rays  of  light.     Their  chutkost'  is  used  up 
exclusively    in    one    direction  —  sharing    people's 
sorrows.     After  speaking  about  them  an  average 
Russian  feels  inclined  to  take  a  deep  breath  of 
fresh  air,  to  stretch  out  his  arms  and  to  call  up 
in   his    memory  the  visions    of   G6gol"s  Troyka, 
Gor'ki's  Granny,  Al'osha's  and  the  Idiot's  lovable 
personalities,  Chehov's  Monk,  Tolstoy's  Pet'a  and 
Natasha  and  the  soldier  Platon  Karavayev,  Alexey 
Tolstoy's  foaming  sea,  Igor'  Sever'anin's  '  halcyon 
day    of   spring  ' — well,  even  the    folk-lore   heroes 
standing  out  in  the  fascinating  vigour  of  their 


102       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

primitive    '  dear    strength '    (the    absolutely    un- 
translatable sllushJca  bogattyrsJcaya),  etc.,  etc. 
some  It  is   all   these  which   keep  unwavering   one's 

thoughts,  trust  in  Eussia's  future:  not  Andreyev's  kind  of 
dead- wall  future,  but  the  future  in  which  there 
will  be  room  for  sadness  and  even  for  joy  or 
suffering — because  the  effects  of  a  sad  history 
cannot  be  finally  effaced — but  which  will  throw 
open  wider  than  ever  Kussia's  gates  to  the  innate 
power  of  loving,  the  freedom  of  thinking  and  the 
sense  of  art.  These  have  come  up  intact  from  the 
depth  of  aboriginal  national  spirit.  The  sense  of 
art  is  a  plant  that  has  been  growing  uninter- 
ruptedly from  the  heart  of  the  Kussian  soil.  Its 
bloom  is  rich.  And  amongst  its  daintiest  flowers  is 
the  one  which  seldom  stands  plucking  and  cannot 
live  in  any  atmosphere  except  its  own  without 
losing  its  fragrance:  and  this  is  the  Russian 

speech. 

***** 

A  The  other  day  we  were  discussing  the  Russian 

parallel,  language  with  Mr.  Nevill  Forbes,  who  knows  it 
wonderfully  well  —  the  only  Englishman,  in  my 
knowledge,  who  is  actually  able  to  appreciate  '  the 
flavour  and  luxury  of  the  Old  Slavonicisms  in 
it,'  to  use  his  own  expression. 

'  It  is  certainly  more  magnificent  than  English,' 
said  he,  and  added :  '  I  should  say,  the  difference 
between  the  two  is  like  that  between  the  robes 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       193 

of  a  Russian  Bishop  and  those  of  an  English 
Bishop  !' 

This  is  a  witty  remark.  But,  being  Russian,  I 
feel  inclined,  for  justice  sake,  to  dwell  for  a 
moment  on  that  lucky  comparison. 

It  is  not  only  the  robes  of  our  Bishops.  .  .  . 
However  agnostic  or  atheistic  we  may  feel,  the 
scene  surrounding  the  Bishop,  or  even  the  look  of 
a  small  log-built  church  in  the  course  of  a  service, 
makes  a  quaint  impression  on  us.  I  am  not 
talking  of  any  religious  elan — or  of  the  moral 
influence  of  our  clergy !  Far  from  that.  .  .  . 
But,  once  that  the  outer  appearance  of  a  Russian 
Bishop  (as  compared  to  an  English  one)  is  taken 
as  an  item  to  convey  the  idea  of  Russian  language 
(as  compared  to  the  English)  graphically,  I  want 
to  be  fair  and  to  include  in  the  comparison  the 
surrounding  atmosphere  as  well.  In  every  church, 
at  every  service  (except  in  Lent)  the  Russian 
clergy's  robes  are  of  that  same  gorgeous  style  as 
those  of  a  Bishop's,  only  on  a  smaller  scale.  Very 
well — they  stand  for  the  '  flavour  and  luxury  '  of 
our  language.  But  the  long-haired  and  golden- 
robed  priest  is  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  naive, 
childlike  believers,  who  do  not  all  sit  down  or 
all  kneel  at  the  same  time  (in  fact,  they  never 
sit  because  there  are  no  seats  in  the  Russian 
churches  at  all),  or  all  read  from  the  same  prayer- 
books  (because  prayer-books  are  not  brought  to 

13 


194       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

church  in  Kussia),  or  all  sing  (because  there  is 
always  a  choir  of  nice  voices  only),  but  who  repre- 
sent a  rare  picture  of  frank  individualism  and 
absence  of  self-consciousness.  Everyone  prays 
as  his  own  heart  dictates  him  at  the  moment — 
some  kneeling  a  long,  long  time,  some  remaining 
standing,  with  their  look  fixed  on  the  golden  gate 
shielding  the  altar  and,  probably,  unaware  of 
anything  around  them;  others,  again,  involun- 
tarily yawning  with  (perhaps  permittable)  fatigue — 
but  hastening  to  cross  themselves  vigorously  and 
to  make  several  '  earth-bows '  (touching  the 
ground  with  their  foreheads)  to  make  up  for  their 
weakness  !  .  .  .  And  on  various  occasions — hun- 
dreds of  little  wax-tapers  flickering  in  the  hands 
of  the  people  in  that  motley  crowd  where  everyone 
finds  various  ways  for  self-expression — including  a 
frank  knock  on  a  neighbour's  back,  with  a  one- 
farthing-taper  and  a  message  finding  its  way  from 
the  back  of  the  crowd — to  light  it  at  the  altar's 
gate  '  To  Nicholas  the  Wonderworker  who  pleases 
God.'  The  Saint  gets  it  duly,  together  with  the 
firm  belief  of  those  present  that  their  little  lights 
will  eventually  lead  them  to  the  gates  of  Heaven. 
Well,  if  they  don't,  they  certainly  envelop  the 
crowd  in  a  warm  glow.  And,  to  my  mind,  the 
distinct  touch  of  this  warm,  picturesque  light 
enwrapping  the  scene  forms  the  other  half  of  the 
graphic  parallel :  the  warmth  and  '  caressiveness  ' 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       195 

of  the  Russian  speech,  (it  is  impossible  to  do  with- 
out this  word  when  speaking  about  Russia  !)  is 
not  one  atom  less  characteristic  of  it  than  its 
magnificence.  And,  gladly  accepting  the  graphic 
comparison  of  the  two  Bishops'  robes,  I  only  want 
to  add  the  comparison  of  the  above-described 
scene  in  a  Russian  church  to  the  one  of  an  English 
congregation.  However  great  and  deep  the  re- 
ligious mood  of  the  latter  may  be,  there  is  no  visible 
medium  for  individual  self-expression  about  it: 
everyone  is  doing  exactly  what  everyone  else  does, 
beginning  and  ending  at  the  same  time — whether 
it  is  kneeling,  sitting,  singing  or  saying  a  prayer. 

'  When  is  the  time  for  them  to  say  their  own 
prayers  ?'  seriously  asked  me  once  a  simple, 
religious  Russian  woman,  obviously  finding  that 
there  was  no  chance  to  pray  '  in  freedom,  inwardly,' 
as  her  own  heart  was  longing  to.  A  religious 
Russian  needs  the  atmosphere  of  the  church,  but 
he  prays  in  it  independently. 

Well,  in  my  picture  of  comparison  (not  so  far- 
fetched as  it  may  seem  at  the  first  glance)  the 
individual  self-expression  with  a  Russian  crowd 
at  prayer  stands  for  the  freedom  with  which  thou- 
sands of  Russian  words  adopt  various  forms 
according  to  the  speaker's  mood  at  the  given 
moment;  while  the  thousands  of  little  lights 
glowing  everywhere  in  the  hands  of  that  crowd 
correspond  to  those  innumerable  words  of  appre- 


196        THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

elation,  encouragement,  sympathy,  forgiveness, 
spiritual  caress,  love  and  tenderness  with  which 
the  Kussian  language  is  lit  up  so  warmly,  so 
beautifully  .  .  .  and  so  untranslatably  ! 

***** 
When  English  people  say  in  a  tone  of  modest 
dignity  that  they  '  do  not  wear  their  hearts  on 
their  sleeves,' — it  always  strikes  us  for  a  second 
that  we  are  horrid  people  who  do  so  !  ...  But 
another  moment — and  the  real  point  reveals  itself 
to  our  mind:  a  conscientious  effort  of  self -analysis 
brings  with  it  the  revelation  that — we  don't  wear 
our  hearts  on  our  sleeves  either  !  But,  that  some 
power,  without  asking  our  permission,  has  concealed 
little  X-ray  cameras  just  against  our  hearts.  .  .  . 
NO  senti-  This  reminds  me  of  a  review  of  Mr.  Stephen 

mentality 

-either  in  Graham's  book  The  Way  of  Martha  and  the  Way 

religion 

or  love,  of  Mary.  The  critic  *  finds  that  '  Mr.  Stephen 
Graham  in  recent  years  has  taken  himself  over- 
seriously  as  an  interpreter  of  Eussia  to  Western 
Europe  ' ;  and  says  that  '  the  Eussians  we  find  in 
Mr.  Stephen  Graham's  book  are  absolutely  unlike 
the  Eussians  that  we  find  in  Chehov,  Turgenev, 
Tolstoy  and  Dostoyevski.  .  .  .  They  are  senti- 
mentalized out  of  all  life-likeness.' 

I  can  only  back  up  the  critic.  He  sees  the  Eus- 
sians better  than  Mr.  Stephen  Graham  does — 
because  the  latter  hardly  allows  us  any  sense  of 

1   Daily  News,  January  3. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       197 

humour.  It  would  be  a  quaint  revelation  to  him 
if  he  realized  some  day  that  the  Russians  ...  do 
not  seem  to  appreciate  his  love  for  them.  Even 
his  call  (  Love  Russia  !'  makes  them  smile.  Both 
in  private  correspondence  and  in  the  best  liberal 
Press  coming  from  Russia  I  can  see  this  ungrate- 
fulness leaking  out.1  The  overwhelming  majority 
of  Russians  are  unable  to  appreciate  Mr.  Graham's 
somewhat  strange  though  sincere  manner  of 
burning  incense  to  their  goodness.  After  all  we 
are  but  ordinary  mortals  !  However  different 
national  characters  may  be,  we  have  not  grown 
more  than  other  nationalities  out  of  the  natural 
human  habit  of  being  human — just  human;  and 
being  '  sentimentalized  out  of  all  life-likeness ' 
calls  forth  our  sense  of  humour.  If  we  are  per- 
mitted to  know  ourselves  a  little  better  than  the 
most  ardent  foreign  admirer  of  Russia  does,  I 
would  like  to  point  out  that  the  '  warmth  '  taking 
such  a  large  part  in  Russian  life  and  speech  does 
not  kill  the  sense  of  humour  at  all !  I  would  like 
to  speak  up  just  for  that  sense  of  humour  rather 
innate  in  the  Russians,  in  the  place  of  senti- 
mentality with  which  Mr.  Graham — perhaps  un- 
consciously— endows  us. 

However  much  warmth  there  is  in  a  Russian  and 
in  his  speech,  this  warmth  is  ever  so  far  from  the 
superficial,  shallow  nature  of  sentimentality.  The 

1  See  The  Times  Literary  Supplement,  March  16,  1916. 


198      THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

absence  of  the  latter  ought  to  be  clear  from  that 
word  bat'ushka  alone,  which,  perhaps,  Mr.  Graham 
also  understands  as  *  little  father '  (at  least  I  never 
heard  of  an  explanation  of  this  common  mis- 
understanding from  his  pen).  I  tried  my  best  to 
show  in  due  place  how  detestably-sickly  this 
manner  of  translating  the  fine  Old  Eussian  grave 
and  serious  manner  of  addressing  sounds  to  us. 
Only  those  Eussians  who  have  no  *  sense  of  lan- 
guages '  at  all  and  don't  trouble  about  the  exact 
meaning  of  words  (there  are  some  Eussians  of  this 
kind  too !)  can  light-heartedly  consent  to  this 
interpretation — so  unfortunately  established. 

One  cannot  even  imagine  the  two  Eussian 
words  for  '  little  father  '  ever  pronounced  in  our 
land  at  all !  They  would  be  '  mal'en'ki  ot'etz  '  or 
'  mal'enki  bat'ushka  ' — and  would  sound  absurd  ! 
The  combining  of  this  particular  noun  with  this 
particular  adjective  is  absolutely  unthinkable;  it 
could  not  be  borne  by  a  Eussian  mind. 

What  is  more,  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
*  bat'ushka  '  stands  its  variety  '  bat'ka  ' — and 
everyone  who  has  lived  in  Eussia  ought  to  know 
what  a  delightful  couple  these  two  make  !  In 
order  to  be  short  and  clear  I  will  invite  my  reader 
for  a  moment  back  again  to  the  little  village  church . 
...  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  wretched  old 
priest  had  a  little  too  much  just  before  the  service. 
Well,  in  that  case  more  than  one  amongst  his 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       199 

congregation  will  smile  to  himself  and  say :  '  Olio ! 
Bat'ka  is  a  bit  tovo  (a  bit  of  that)  F  Not  for  a 
second  would  the  usual  manner  of  addressing  a 
priest  (bat'ushka)  come  into  a  Kussian's  mind  on 
such  an  occasion:  it  would  be  bat'ka — unless  it  is 
merely  pop  ! 

I  think,  that  bat'ushka  and  bat'ka,  coming  from 
one  root,  are  excellent  in  depicting  the  contrasting 
proximity  of  seriousness  and  humour.  But  both 
of  them  are  miles  away  from  sentimentality.  A 
little  peasant  fellow  who  had  just  had  a  spanking 
from  his  father  (which  is  not  common  amongst 
the  peasantry  and  quite  absent  with  the  educated 
classes)  will  explain  the  richness  of  his  complexion 
to  a  sympathetically-inquisitive  comrade  in  two 
words:  '  Bat'ka  pr'ib'il.'1  Calling  his  father  by 
this  word  bat'ka  instead  of  ot'etz,  or  bat'ushka, 
or  t'at'ka  (all  standing  for  '  father  '  in  a  nice  way), 
he  will  thus  express  his  attitude  at  the  given 
moment:  namely,  one  of  criticism,  but  at  the 
same  time  one  which  it  is  not  worth  while  dwelling 
upon.  The  peasant's  criticism  passed  on  his 
spiritual  father's  weakness  is  of  the  same  nature: 
the  next  moment  he  will  be  deep  in  his  mood  of 
devotional  worship — far  from  being  formal  or 
perfunctory,  but  in  free  accord  with  what  he  feels 
moved  to  do — and  not  thinking  of  the  priest's 
lack  of  dignity  at  all.  There  is  no  decorum  in 

1  — has  beaten  me. 


200      THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

the  attitude  of  our  peasantry  towards  their  priest- 
hood: if  there  were  any,  the  funny  everyday  word 
pop  (for  priest)  would  never  have  come  into  being. 
Both  in  pop  and  in  bat'ka  there  is  a  world  of 
humour.  What  is  more,  a  demure,  funny  little 
priest  would  be  called  popik,  which  is  the  quint- 
essence of  fun  ! 

That  is  just  the  case :  we  laugh  on  many  occasions 
where  Mr.  Graham  probably  does  not  want  to  see 
us  laughing;  consequently  he  ignores  certain 
points  of  Eussian  life.  The  comic  element  when 
observed  in  the  sphere  of  orthodoxy  and  '  holiness  ' 
is  with  us  a  perfectly  natural  target  for  fun. 

If  you  only  could  read  in  original  the  untrans- 
latable Sobor'an'e  (The  Cathedral-ians)  by  L'eskov 
— what  a  wealth  of  that  very  Eussian  humour  which 
goes  hand  in  hand  with  good-natured  forgiveness ! 
Again,  Chehov's  tenderness  for  the  failures  of 
mankind:  isn't  it  interwoven  with  humour — now 
subtle,  now  farcically -naked — which  means  a  fear- 
less openness  of  good  heart  ?  Is  it  anywhere  near 
sentimentality  ? 

Why,  even  the  vague  English  definition  '  lovers  ' 
could  be  sooner  related  to  sentimentality  than 
our  most  decisive  denomination  (I'ubovniki)  which 
draws  a  circle  round  the  word  for  lovers  (see 
pp.  15,  16)  leaving  no  room  for  the  question 
what  sort  of  lovers  they  may  be.  Passion  is 
certainly  understood  by  this  term;  but  no  senti- 
mental parading.  If  there  is  any  '  display  '  about 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE      201 

it — say,  in  a  man's  going  with  his  secret  lover  to 
the  stalls  of  the  Opera  House  pretending  to  be  her 
ordinary  acquaintance  or  a  stranger — then  there 
is  challenge  and  humour  in  it,  but  no  desire  to 
be  sweetly  called  '  lovers  '  by  grannies  and  school- 
girls. His  friends  who  know  about  his  uvlecheniye 
(see  p.  124)  will  express  their  understanding  with- 
out words  and  will  enjoy  the  situation  as  one  of 
buoyant  humour,  feeling  themselves  a  kind  of  con- 
spirators. This  touch  is  not  comparable  with  the 
atmosphere  of  the  English  morals,  visible  or  con- 
cealed, just  as  '  popik  '  and  '  bat'ka '  are  not  com- 
parable with  '  our  vicar  ' — and  as  the  two  languages 
are  not  really  comparable  in  their  whole.  The  lack 
of  common  denominator  in  each  of  these  spheres  is 
striking. 

So  it  is  with  regard  to  cases  of  profound  emotions. 
The  times,  when  Yronski's  appearance  in  a  theatre 
box  with  Anna  Kar'enina  whom  he  regarded  as  his 
wife  was  taken  as  impudence,  are  gone  now.  Russia 
has  been  developing  since  then — in  every  way  A  little 
but  one.  .  .  .  Only  the  sphere  of  home  politics  sion. 
in  Russian  life  is  rather  unlike  the  others,  and  the 
road  along  it  is  somewhat  barricaded  in  spite  of  the 
progress  on  its  right  and  left.  But  we,  true  to  our 
cherished  dreams,  still  hope  that  the  war  will 
automatically  overthrow  this  striking  inconsis- 
tency. 

But  this  one  particular  sphere  of  our  dreams  can 
hardly  be  called  sentimental:  there  is  an  element 


202       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

of  tragedy  in  it;  and  the  absence  of  humour  in  this 
case  is  rather  pardonable. 

Elsewhere,  deepest  emotions  don't  exclude  a 
smile  with  the  Russians.  An  old,  essentially 
Russian  exclamation  in  the  form  of  an  address  is 
a  typical  illustration:  '  Eh,  thou,  gor'e-bogatyr' !' 
.  .  .  Bogatyr  is  a  folk-lore  definition  for  a  hero 
richly  endowed  with  victorious  spiritual  and 
physical  power;  while  gore  means  grief,  disaster; 
combining  the  two  seemingly  incommensurable 
conceptions  and  throwing  them  at  a  fellow  without 
any  further  comment  carries  with  it  a  world  of 
sympathy  (for  some  reckless,  fruitless  effort) 
combined  with  a  smile.  Don  Quixote  was  a  real 
gor'e-bogatyr' ! 

Russia   would  not   have   produced   the    genius 
of  Gogol'  and  of  Ostrovski  if  this  laughter  through 
tears  were  not  innate  in  her  very  blood. 
The  A  '  snap- jack  '  is  to  a  sunlit  room  what  humour 

of  a  snap-  is  to  Russian  tenderness.  (I  vainly  asked  a  number 
Russian  °f  my  friends  what  is  the  English  word  for  the 
little  patch  of  brilliant  light  which  one  sends 
fluttering  about  the  room  in  one's  childhood  by 
means  of  reflecting  sun-rays  on  a  piece  of  broken 
looking-glass;  no  one  could  tell  me.  At  last  I  got 
the  '  snap-jack,'  without  a  moment's  hesitation, 
from  a  dear  village  landlady  who  commands  an 
extraordinary  vocabulary.  It  sounds  most  appro- 
priate !)  That  is  why  we  do  not  quite  recognize 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE      203 

ourselves  in  the  paintings  by  Mr.  Stephen  Graham : 
there  is  much  colour  in  them,  but  the  room  is  too 
hot  and  there  is  no  '  snap-jack  '  in  it ! 

Therefore  I  am  very  anxious  that  the  reader  of 
this  book  educated  on  such  representations  should 
not  draw  a  final  vision  of  the  Eussians  exclusively 
with  the  help  of  their  lovable  and  caressive  terms 
discussed  in  its  pages.  They  are  not '  pretty  ' — 
these  terms  !  You  must  not  call  them  so.  For 
one  thing,  we  have  no  word  for  '  prettiness.' 
The  adjective  '  pretty  '  we  have  (horoshen'ki),  and 
we  apply  it  to  pretty  women's  faces,  their  frocks 
and  hats,  to  knick-knacks,  to  jewellery,  to  small 
gardens,  small  houses,  small  animals.  But  we  have 
no  word  for  prettiness.  And  it  would  never  occur 
to  us  to  call  the  words  bogatyr',  chutki,  laskovost', 
rodnoy,  prostor,  razdolye,  prost'lt'e,  bat'ushka, 
etc.1 '  pretty  '  words.  They  are  beautiful,  because 
their  meaning  is  deep.  Nor  are  pop,  or  bat'ka, 
or  baba,  or  sapojlshche,  or  mozgl'aven'ki2  pretty, 
either !  If  I  add  just  one  more  word  to  the 
last  set,  my  idea  can  be  conveyed  in  a  charac- 
teristic saying:  this  word  is  popadyd,  and  means 
the  pop's  wife3;  and  the  saying  (applied  when 
one  is  talking  about  the  variety  of  tastes  in 
this  world)  runs:  '  Some  like  the  pop,  some — 

1  See  pp.  18,  23,  25,  50,  168,  179. 

2  See  pp.  126,  141,  149,  199. 

3  I  expect  my  reader  knows  that  a  man  cannot  take  holy 
orders  in  Russia  without  being  married. 


204       THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

popadya,  and  some — the  tail  of  piggy  !'  Or,  here 
is  a  variety:  '  Some  like  a  melon,  some — water- 
melon, and  some — the  pop's  daughter  !' 1 

Those  Kussian  hearts  can  also  be  bursting  with 
'  naughty  '  fun;  we  have  no  word  for  '  naughty,' 
but  I  think  we  understand  its  English  shades  of 
meaning;  we  find  it  too  much  rubbed  into  the 
astonishingly  well-trained  babies  of  this  country, 
while  the  facial  expression  usually  accompanying 
this  blame  when  it  is  addressed  to  '  grown-ups  '- 
makes  us  smile  !  They  can  be  very  furious,  those 
Russian  hearts  ;  very  indignant,  burning  with 
hatred,  wicked,  wilful,  nonchalant;  even  cruel— 
on  the  one  cumbered  road.  .  .  .  But  the  X-rays 
go  on  doing  their  work  on  all  these  occasions  just 
the  same  !  And  this  is  the  most  characteristic 
feature  about  the  Russians. 

***** 

Final  dig        I  would  not  like  my  reader  to  run  away  with 

'  the  idea  that  I  am  unaware  of  all  the  scientific 

arguments   which   philologists    can   hurl   at   me. 

I  think  I  know  most  of  them,  and  I   would  like 

my  reader  to  know  what  I  think  of  them. 

The  main  argument  will  be,  that  all  this  flexi- 
bility of  words  which  we  enjoy  so  much  is  merely 
an  evidence  of  the  primitive  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  our  language ;  that  other  languages  had  it 

1  KTO  non£,  KTO  nonaflbio,  a  KTO  CBHHOH  XBOCTHKT.  ! 
KTO  jHoSurt  fltiHio,  KTO  ap6y3i>,  a  KTO  nonoBy 


THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       205 

once  upon  a  time  all  these  eloquent  terminations 
and  twists  to  the  words  —  but  have  dropped 
them  as  an  unnecessary  ballast.  Then  they  will 
say  that  it  is  easier  to  learn  the  English,  freed 
from  that  ballast,  than  any  other  language;  and 
that  this  is,  after  all,  the  all-important  advantage- 
making  the  English  speech  attractive  to  a  number 
of  nations  on  this  globe. 

Well,  I  quite  agree  that  the  purely  grammatical 
terminations  can  be  called  a  ballast;  and  perhaps 
we  would  not  notice  or  mind  if  they  withered 
gradually  and  fell  of?  one  by  one — leaving  four  out 
of  the  thirty-two  terminations  to  a  verb's  stem. 
But  when  my  English  critics  tell  me  that  a  selec- 
tion of  precise  adjective  epithets  works  just  as 
well  as  a  special  twist  given  to  the  noun  itself  in 
order  to  illustrate  the  speaker's  attitude,  I  find 
it  a  little  inconsequent:  it  is  not  in  accord  with 
the  general  English  power  through  brevity.  When 
people  complain  '  I  have  no  time  !' — and  a  wonder- 
ful friend  of  mine  answers  simply  and  inspiringly 
'Make  time,  make  time!' — as  if  this  were  as  easy 
as  making  crumbs  out  of  bread — and  does  so  him- 
self— this  fills  me  with  admiration.  But,  stringing 
a  row  of  adjectives,  as  in  '  dirty,  nasty,  objec- 
tionable, wretched,  little  old  man,'  instead  of  our 
simple  way  of  merely  adding  two  certain  syllables 
to  the  noun  meaning  old  man,  does  not  look  like 
making  time  to  me  !  The  other  alternative  in 


206       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

English  for  such  cases  (as  I  equally  gather  from 
my  friends)  is — to  make  faces  !  Instead  of  saying 
something  like  '  Wipe  your  }>oot-ishche  !' — as  would 
be  the  ominous  twist  to  the  Russian  word  for 
clumsy  big  boots  heavy  with  mud — the  English 
people  are  supposed  to  convey  their  attitude  of 
disapproval  by  a  facial  expression  and  tone  of 
voice  accompanying  '  those  boots  !'  This  would 
be  all  right  if  they  did;  but  they  don't.  Such 
things  are  always  asked  in  the  politest  and  kindest 
manner  imaginable  (if  they  are  asked  at  all !)  and 
we  never  see  '  faces  '  on  our  English  friends'  faces. 
The  perfectly  justifiable  tend  of  their  real  thoughts 
on  such  occasions  remains  deep  below. 

It  is  like  an  enchanted  circle  of  mutual  influence : 
innate  reticence  does  not  allow  the  English  people 
sufficient  colouring  in  their  speech  for  fear  of 
making  it '  flowery '  and  '  ridiculous  '  (reasons  which 
equally  account  for  the  lack  of  expression  in  the 
general  English  manner  of  reading  aloud  or  re- 
citing) while  their  speech — thus  having  been  pruned 
close  to  its  stem — in  its  turn  does  no  more  send 
out  shoots  of  tender  green  filled  with  springly1  sap. 

1  I  know  that  there  is  in  English  no  adjective  '  springly ' 
deriving  of  the  soun  spring  (the  season  of  the  year,  and 
not  a  spring  in  the  mattress),  but  I  am  unable  to  manage 
without  it.  In  Russian  we  have  it  in  two  forms,  ancient  and 
modern:  v'eshn'i,  v'es'enn'i.  While  the  mattress-spring  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it:  it  is  npy>KHHa,  with  its  own  adjective 
prujinny  ;  and  the  third  English  spring — for  leap — is  with  us 
different  again : 


THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE       207 

So  we  could  not  possibly  accept  this  argument 
as  carrying  the  point  in  favour  of  the  English 
language  for  its  being  freed  of  '  unnecessary  ballast.' 
To  our  mind,  this  part  of  the  '  ballast '  is  the  very 
sun-colour  of  our  speech. 

The  last  argument,  about  English  being  ever  so 
much  easier  than  Eussian,  is  beyond  debating,  of 
course.  But  if  the  Kussians  had  the  choice 
offered  to  them — either  to  have  their  language 
preserved  as  it  is  and  have  it  spoken  only  by  a 
limited  number  of  foreigners,  or  to  have  it  pruned 
like  the  Modern  English  and  to  hear  it  spoken 
by  other  peoples  all  round  the  world — they  would 
prefer  the  first,  the  unpractical  alternative  !  They 
wouldn't  be  Russians  if  they  didn't. 


INDEX  OF  MARGIN  HEADINGS 


PAOE 


English  conceptions  not  existing  in  Russian  -  4 

An  open  question       -  -  9 

A  side-light  -  10 

A  clash  in  a  definition  -  1 4 

The  attitude  of  the  Russian  mind  in  general  -  16 

—  and  regarding  fools — and  cleverness  -  17 

—  and  responsiveness  -  18 
Quality  causing  responsiveness  -  20 

—  illustrated  by  an  instance  at  an  English  school       -  -  20 
Too  much  of  it  22 
The  beloved  Russian  conception:  Prostor  -                           -  25 
Foreign  words  in  the  Russian  language  -  28 
The  all-powerful  syllables  or  nuances  -  29 
The  characteristics  and  flexibility  of  the  verb  '  to  be  '  -  34 
Further  transformations  of  words       -  -  37 
The  power  of  terminations      -  -  40 
A  new  word  for  the  Germans  -  43 
A  new  reading  of  an  old  word  -  44 
The  Russian  method  of  address  -  45 
An  ordinary  term  of  sociability  -  49 
Misunderstood  terms  of  affinity  -  50 
Indispensable  Russian  form  of  address  -  53 
Another  side-light      -  -  54 
N'ichev6        -  57 
A  very  Russian  word  for  affection      -  -             -  ^59 
The  order  of  words     -  60 
A  reminiscence  -  63 
G6gol' — the  nationalist           -             -  -             -             -  67 
A  term  of  endearment  for  Russia        -  -             -  67 

208 


INDEX  OF  MARGIN  HEADINGS  209 

PAGE 

G6gol'  on  prost6r       -  -  68 

Conceptions  without  which  a  Russian  could  not  live  -  -  69 

An  important  digression  -  72 

Tr6yka  -  75 

The  possibility  of  G6gol's  vision  -  79 

The  new  idea  of  nationalism  -  81 

No  danger  for  England  -  81 

A  typical  Russian  word  for  quick  wit  -  82 

'  Man,'  '  woman,'  and  '  marriage '  -  85 

*  Chin,'  '  chin6vnik,'  and  Peter  the  Great        -  -  87 

An  example  of  transference  of  ideas   -  -  90 

A  very  Russian  conception     -  91 

The  '  sadness  that  gives  joy  '  -93 

The  oneness  with  Nature        -  -  95 

Looking  backward      -  -97 

A  mainspring  of  Russian  character     -  -  97 

Difference  between  the  English  and  the  Russian  conceptions 

of  belief  -  -  98 

Two  words  for  '  Truth  '  -  99 

'  Behind-the-soul-ness '  -  99 

Some  Russian  sayings  -  102 

No  *  slang  '  in  Russian  -  103 

Untranslatable  names  -  106 

Creating  new  words    -  -  108 

A  characteristic  poem  -  m 

The  part  played  by  Old  Slavonic        -  -  in 

A  query  .  n5 

The  keys  to  the  fairy-tale,  child-young  nature  of  the  Russian 

Language  n7 

An  explanation  via  other  channels      -  -  118 

Some  simple  derivations  .  n9 

Subconscious  will  reflected  in  verbs    -  -  121 

No  compromise  -  122 

An  everyday  capacity  .  124 

Baba — a  very  Russian  conception       -  -  126 

An  historical  anecdote  -  128 

Two  historical  definitions  wrongly  translated  -  131 

A  special  twist  to  the  nouns  -  133 

14 


210         THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 

PAGE 

Tenderness   and   Love   winding   their   way   throughout   the 

language  -  138 

Various  terminations   conveying  the  exact  attitude  of   the 

speaker  -  -  142 

Poignancy  of  expressions        -                           -  -  145 

Some  Russian  curses  -  147 

A  unique  term  to  depict  a  dismerit     -  -149 

'  Nadryv'       -  -  150 

Another  word  without  which  the  Russian  language  would  cease 

to  be  Russian      -  157 

A  new  pearl  of  Russian  literature       -  -  159 

The  favourite  Russian  tense  -  -  161 

Another  very  Russian  aspect  of  love  -  -  162 

Granny  and  her  God  -  -  164 

Praise  for  the  Russian  baba  -  -  169 

The  people's  speech  as  presented  by  Gor'ki     -  -  171 

The  evolution  of  Dostoyevski's  outlook  -  172 

A  dreary  conception    -  -  175 

Dostoyevski's  influence  on  latest  Russian  literature  -             -  175 

Feodor  Sollogub — the  admirer  of  death  -  178 

A  typical  sacrament  -  -  179 

The  true  meaning  of  good-bye  -  179 

A  praise  for  one's  foes  -  181 

The  mystic  woman-poet  -  185 

An  extraordinary  poem  -  186 

Snow-the-Wonderful    -  -  187 

'  What  is  lacking  in  the  moonlight  ?'  -  188 

Abundance  of  conjunctions     -  -  188 

A  Russian's  longing      -  -  191 

Some  hopeful  thoughts  -  192 

A  suggestive  parallel  -  192 

No  sentimentality — either  in  religion  or  love  -  196 

A  little  digression       -  -  201 

The  presence  of  a  '  snap- jack  '  in  Russian  life  -  202 

Final  dig  at  English   -  -  204 


RUSSIAN  WORDS  AND  EXPRESSIONS  USED 
AND  EXPLAINED  IN  THE  TEXT 

(IN    ORDER    OF   THEIR   APPEARANCE) 


Bzykatsa 
Vyshedshi 
Razv'erzl'is'  hl'ab'i 

n'eb'esnyia  ! 
Zdrastvuyt'e  - 
Naslajd'eniye  - 
Schastye 

Baryn'a,  baryshn'a  - 
L'ubovnik  (-ki,  plur.) 
M'elochn6y 
M'eloch,  m'elochnost' 
Durak,  durachdk 
Otzyvchivy 
Chtitki    - 

T'ajela  na  podyom  - 
Otzyvchivost' 
Chtitkoat,  chutki       - 
Chuty6    - 
Pr'iv'&tl'ivy     - 
Laskovy 
Laskovost' 
Prostor   - 
Razdolye 
Blagodar'fc 
Spasibo  - 
Br'esti    - 

L'et'et'  - 

Rvat'  - 

Vitsa  - 

M6r'e  - 

Holm  - 


BpHKaTBCH 

Btiuie.a.uiH 


CiacTte 
BaptiHH, 

JlK)60BHHKT>,  JIK)60BHHKH 


na 
OTSLIBHUBOCTB 

HyTKOCTB, 

Hyxbe    - 

IlpHBrBTJIHBLltt 


JIaCKOBOCTL      - 

ITpocTop-b       - 


CnacnSo  - 

BpecTH,    HaSpecTH,    BaGpecxH, 
HaoSpecTH  - 


PAOK 

4 
6 

!-   10 

1 1 

-  13 

-  13 
14 

-  16 

-  17 

!7 

-  17 
18 
18 
18 

20 

20 
20 

22 

-  /-)  ^ 

-  23 
25 

-  25 
29 
29 


,  BaopsaTb     - 

BHTbCH,  BSBHTbCH    - 

Mope,  BsMopbe        - 
XOJIMI>  - 
211 


30 
30 
30 

30 

30 
30 


212       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


Bit' 

Stol 

Pr'estdl  - 

Vrat'       - 

Lgat' 

Trus 

Jat' 

P'et' 

Shchupat' 

Chuvstvovat' 

Zvat' 

Brat' 

Stat' 

Da  vat'    - 


Sy&zd,  razy^zd,  pody6zd, 
vydzd,  priyezd,  vyiezd, 
obyezd,  proy&zd,  nay&- 
zdy  - 

Byt' 


Zabyvchivost' 

Zab^tye 

Obmorok 

Yest'       - 

U  m&n'a  yest'  vr&m'a 

Byl6ye    - 

Btid'e      - 

Bylo 

Byt 

Bytov6y 

Bfcdushscheye  - 

Duh 

Dtihi       - 

Duhl       - 

V6zduh  - 

Duhota  - 

Dusha     - 

Dunov&niye     - 

Otdyh     - 


no6nTb,    Bbi(5nTb, 


Ha6nTb 
Grojrb    - 


BpaTb, 

JlraTb    - 

Tpyc-b,  Tpycoearb 


,  nan-BBaTb 
Ilfynaxb,  namynaxb 


BpaTb,  H 

GxaTb,  nacTaxb,  BCiaTb,  ycxaTb, 

nepecTaxb,  npHCTarb,  aacTaxb 


nepe^asaTb, 


,  061,- 
npo'fea.n'b,    H-BT-b    npo- 


,  npo6biTb,  c6biTb, 
y6biTb,  BbiCbiTb,  npuSbiTb,  aa- 
6biTb  -  - 


3a6biTbe 


EcTb      - 

y  MGHH  ecTb  BpeMH 

BbiJioe,  CbiJib  - 


BbiJio  - 
BUTT,  - 
EbiTOBott 


.OjxoTa  - 
Ayuia     - 


3  i 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
32 
32 
32 

32 

32 
32 

33 


33 


33 


34 
34 
34 
34 
35 
35 
36 
36 
36 
37 
37 
37 
37 
37 

37 

37 
37 
37 
37 
37 


RUSSIAN  WORDS  AND  EXPRESSIONS          213 


Otdyhat' 

Dushistost' 

Yedinodiishiye 

Velikodiishiye  - 

Prostodfrshiye  - 

Dobrodtishiye  - 

Duhovenstvo  - 

Vzdoh     - 

Dhshechka 

Duhovnaya 

Duhovaya 

Otdfrshina 

Izdyhat' 

Pravda   - 

Pravilo    - 

Pravo 

Pravil'nost'      - 

Pravleniye 

Upravleniye 

Pravitel'stvo    - 

Pereprava 

Sprav'edlivost' 

Vypravka 

Popravka 

Napravleniye  - 

Pravovedeniye 

Pravoslaviye    - 

Vodit'      - 

Zavodit'  - 

Privod    - 

Zavod     - 

Svod 

Nevod     - 

Vzvod     - 

Perevod 

Podvoda 

Str6y      - 

Stroynost' 

Postroyka 

Stroyeniye 

Ustroystvo 

Nastroyeniye  - 

Nastroyshchik 


IIpocToayiiiie 
.IJoGpoAyiiiie   - 

flyXOBGHCTBO   - 
B3flOXT>  - 

,H,yiiie4Ka 


IIpaBHJio 
npaso    - 

ripaBHJIBHOCTb 

npaBJienie 
VnpaBJieme     - 

IIpaBHTeJILCTBO 

IlepenpaBa 


BbinpaBKa 
IIonpaBKa 
Hanpasjieme  - 


Cxpott    - 

CTpOttHOCTb      - 

HocTpoliKa 
CTpoenie 

YcTpOfiCTBO      - 

HacxpoeHie     - 
HacxpoftmnKT> 


PAOK 

37 

38 
38 
38 
38 
38 
38 
38 
38 
38 
38 
38 
38 

39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 
39 


214       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


Starina   - 

-    Ciapima 

PAGE 
41 

Starost'  - 

-     GxapocTb 

41 

Starik     - 

-    CTapnKT> 

41 

Staretz    - 

-    CTapeijt 

41 

Starichdk 

-      GxapHHOKT, 

41 

Starikashka     - 

-    CTapuKaiima  - 

41 

Starichishka    - 

-    CTapHqiiuiKa  - 

41 

Staryo     - 

-    Orapbe  - 

41 

Mal'chik 

-    MajibmiK-b 

41 

Mal'chishka     - 

-    MajibHHUina    - 

41 

Mal'chugan 

-    MajibiiyraH-b  - 

41 

Mal'chonka      - 

-    MajibqoHKa,        MajibHyraiiJKa, 

MajibHyraHtiHK'B,   Ma:ib4HHbKa 

41 

D'evochka       - 

-      .H'BBOHKa 

41 

D'  evch6nochka 

J^'BBHOHOMKa    - 

41 

D'evushka 

J^'BByiiiKa 

41 

D'evchonka     - 

-      ^'BBHOHKa          - 

41 

D'evitza 

-    JJ-EBima 

41 

D'eva 

JI'BBa. 

41 

D'evka   - 

-      3'BBKa     - 

41 

Syn 

-      GbIHT> 

41 

Synok     - 

-      CblHOKT, 

41 

Synochek 

-      CblHOieKT, 

41 

Synishche 

-    CbiHume 

41 

Doctf      - 

-      J^OHb 

41 

Dochka  - 

-    ^OHKa   - 

41 

Doch'en'ka 

-    ^oqeHbKa       - 

41 

Dochurka 

-    JJoiypKa 

41 

M61odost' 

-      MoJIO^OCTb 

42 

Molod'etz 

-     MojiOAeirt 

42 

Byl'  molodzu  n'e  ukor 

-    BbiJib  MOJio^uy  ne  yKopT>  - 

42 

Molod'6j 

-    MojioAemt 

42 

Germantzy 

-    FepMaHi;bi 

43 

N'emtzy 

-      H-feMI^bl  - 

43 

N'emdy  - 

-      HfiMOfi    - 

43 

Slav'  an'  e 

-    GjiaBHHe                  -   . 

43 

Soldat'ik 

-    Coji,n;aTHKT> 

43 

Germanetz 

-    repMaHeu,T> 

44 

Germanchuk    - 

-    FepMaHHyK-L  - 

44 

N'emetz- 

-     Hi>Meivi> 

44 

N'emchura 

-    H^M^ypa 

44 

Gospod'ln 

-    FocnoAHHi. 

47 

Gospoja  - 

-    FocnojKa 

47 

RUSSIAN  WORDS  AND  EXPRESSIONS 


Golubchik 
Golubchik  barin 
Hey,  vy,  goltibchiki ! 
Golubushka-baryn'a 
Bat1  ushka 
Matushka 
Gosudar' 

Gosudar'  -  bat'  ushka 
Mllostivyie  gosudar'i 

(ma?c.) 
Milostivyia  gosudaryn'i 

(fern.) 
Gospoda 
Brafczy    - 
Tulupchik 
D'et'l,     d'dtki,   d'et'lshki, 

d'etochki,  d'etvora 
Karapuz 
Puzyr'     - 
N'ichev6 
Rod 

Pr'irdda  - 
Rodstvo  - 
Narod  - 
Urojay  - 
Rojdeniyo 
Rodina  - 
Rojdestvo 

Rodnoy,  rodnaya,  rodnyie 
N'emtzev 
Anglichau'e 
Pobil'i     - 
Soyuzn'iki 
Izgnal'i  - 
Amerikantzam 
Pravdu  - 
Pokazal'i 

Sapogi  gannon'ikoy  - 
Sapogi  butylkam'i    - 
Larapadka,  lampada 
T'^plitsa 
Nadod'en'eg  - 
N'ichev6  mn'e  n'e  nado    - 


Fati,  BH, 
FojiyCyniKa 
BaTiouiKa 
MaTyuina 


6aTiouiKa 
MiiJiocTHBbie  rocy^apn 

MHJIOCTHBHH 


-  BpaTijLi 


T01IKH, 

Kapany3T> 


npnpo.ua 

PofljCTBO 


PO^HOH, 


GOK)3HHKH 

HarnaJin 


GanorH 
Canom 


fl,1iTHUIKH, 


MITE  ne 


215 

PAGR 

49 
49 
49 
50 
50 
S1 
52 
52 
53 

53 

53 
54 
55 

56 
56 
56 
57 
59 
59 
59 
59 
59 
59 
59 
59 
60 
61 
61 
61 
61 
61 
61 
61 
61 
62 
62 
63 
63 
65 
65 


216       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


N6gi  tvoyi  tzeluyu 
Rosslya,  Rus* 

Ty 

Dal' 

Razd61ye 

D61'a       - 

Raz-dva 

Raz-dva-tri 

Razmah  - 

Razsv'£t 

Sv'et       - 

Razgtd    - 

Gul'  anye 

Gul'at'    - 

Razgul'atsa      - 

Razgovoritsa  - 

Razv'es'elltsa  - 

Razoyt'ls' 

Razospatsa 

Uvrechdniye    - 

Razverndtsa    - 

Troyka   - 

Prist'ajnyia 

Duga 

Korennoy 

Razmetnulas' 

Rovn'em-gladn'em 

Eh  !  Ek  ! 


Skazano-sd'elano  ! 

Muj,  muj  china 

Chin 

Jena,  jenshchina 

On&  vyhodit  zamuj 

On  j  enitsa 

Mylitsa   - 

Paritsa    - 

Jen'lh     - 

N'e  v'Mat'      - 

N'ev'&sta 

Bezchinstvo     - 

Bez 

Chin6vn'ik 


Horn  TBOH 
Poccifl,  Pycb  - 
Tu 


-    Pa3Maxi> 


CB-BTT>    - 
Pa3ryjii> 


PasryjiHTbCH  - 

PaSFOBOpHTbCH 


PasoitTHCb 
PasocnaxbCH  - 


PasBepnyTbcn 
TpottKa 


KopenHott 
Pa3M6THyjiacb 


Bxt  !  9KT,  ! 
CiweTKa  - 


!  - 


HHHT> 

>Kena, 

Ona 

OHT>  JKGHHTCH 

MblJIHTbCH 
EapHTbCH 


He 


B63HHHCTBO 

Besi. 
HHHOBHHKT> 


PAOR 

66 
68 
68 
68 
70 
70 
70 
70 
71 
7' 
71 
72 
72 
72 
72 
72 
72 
72 
72 
73 
74 
75 
76 
76 
76 
76 
76 

79 
82 

83 
85 
85 
85 
85 
85 
85 
85 
85 
85 
85 
87 
87 
87 


RUSSIAN  WORDS  AND  EXPRESSIONS 

217 

PAGE 

Dubinka 

,ZJy6nHKa 

89 

Nyt' 

HblTb       - 

90 

Da  bros't'e  vy  nyt'  ! 

,ZJa  SpocbTe  Bbi  HbiTb  ! 

90 

Nytyd     - 

HbiTbe    - 

91 

Toska     - 

Tocna     - 

91 

Toskovat',  toskuyet 

ToCKOBaTb,  TOCKyeTb 

91 

Eh,  toska  zayela  !     - 

BXT>,  Tocna  aa-fejia  !  - 

92 

Tom'  it'    - 

ToMHTb 

93 

M'ily       - 

Mnjibitt 

94 

Dorog6y  - 

Jloporoft 

94 

Burlakl  - 

EypjiaKii 

94 

Pravda   - 

HpaB.ua 

99 

Istina 

HCTHHa 

99 

Istinnaya  pravda 

HcTHHHan  npaBfla    - 

99 

Zadushevny 

3a,nyiiieBHbift  - 

100 

Dusha  moya    - 

JJyiiia  MOH 

IO2 

Po  dushd 

Ho  flynrB 

102 

N'e  po  dushe  - 

He  no  j^yui'h  - 

102 

S'eb'e  na  um'd 

CeS'fe  na  ywfe  - 

IO2 

N'e  mytyom  tak  katanyem 

He  MbrrbCM-b  TaKi>  KaTaHbeivn>    - 

102 

Na     vs'akago     mudretza 

Ha  BCHKaro  MyApei^a  ^OBOJibno 

dovol'no  prostoty 

npOCTOTbl 

102 

Krayuha 

Kparoxa 

102 

Za  pazuhoy 

3a  nasyxott    - 

103 

Bo  jest  venn  o  !  - 

BoTKeCTBGHHO  - 

I  13 

Glaza      - 

Tjiasa    - 

114 

Ochi 

Oqn       - 

114 

Budushcheye  - 

By«ymee 

114 

Gr'adushcheye 

TpH^ymee 

114 

Potomuchto     - 

HoTOMyqio 

114 

Zov 

30BT> 

114 

Klich      .... 

Kjin^-b  - 

114 

S'ila 

Cnjia 

114 

Moshch    - 

Momb    - 

114 

Priznaniye 

HpH3Hanie 

114 

Dobr6     - 

Ro6p6    - 

114 

Blago      - 

Bjiaro    - 

114 

Sud'ba    - 

CyAi>6a  ----- 

114 

Rock       - 

POKT> 

14 

Rany      - 

Panti 

14 

Yazvy     - 

H3BbI 

114 

Yesli       - 

ECJIH 

14 

K6H        .... 

KOJIH     ----- 

14 

Cpawb    - 
Tenepb  - 

HblHG       - 


218       THE  KUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


Glub'ina  -     TjiySima 

Puchina  -     nyqiraa 

Styd       - 
Sram 
T'ep'er'  - 

Otdyhat' 

Pochivat' 

Gor'e      -  -     Tope 

Skorb'     -  -     Cnopl 

Eto  -     BTO 

S'iye       -  -     Cie 

Guby      -  -     Fy6bi 

Usta       -  -    yCTa 

Potzeluy 

Lobzaniye        -  -     JIoGaame 

Iskusheniye     -  -     IIcKyuieme 

Soblazn  - 

Drugoy   - 

Inoy 

Bezostanovochno 

N'eustanno 

Duma 

Mysl'       -  -    Mbicjib 

T'eio       -  -     T-BJIO      - 

Plot'  -  -      HjIOTb      - 

S-hodstvo  -     CxoflCTBO 

Podob'iye 

Rab,  rabota,  rabstvo 

Volna,    voln'eniye    volno- 

vatsa 
Ya  hochu 
Mn'e,  Ya 
Mn'e  hochetsa 
Ne  hochetsa  rabotat' 
Hdchetsa  otdohnut'  - 
Spat'  hochetsa  ! 
Hochetsa  molodost'i ! 
Hochetsa  1'ubv'l 
Ya  hochu  jenltsa 
Mn'e  hochetsa  jenltsa 
Zamuj  h6chetsa  ! 
Hot'elos'  -         -         -     Xorfcjiocb 


BeBOCTanoBOHHO 
HeycTanno 


.,  paSoTa,  paSciBO 
Bojina,  BOJineme, 


H  xony 

MH-B,  H 

MH-B  xoiieTCH 

He  XOHGTCH  paGoTaTb 

XoneTCH  oTfloxnyTb 

Cnaib  XOHGTCH 

XoqexcH  MOJIO,O;OCTH  ! 

XOHGTCH  JIK)6BH 

H  XO^y  JKGHHTbCH     - 

MH-B  xo'ieTCH 

i   _ 


I'AU  K 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 
114 

120 
I  2O 

121 
121 
121 
121 
121 
121 
121 
121 
121 
121 
122 
122 


RUSSIAN  WORDS  AND  EXPRESSIONS 


Uvlechdniye     - 

Uvlekatsa 

Vy  m'en'a  uvlekayet'e 

Baba       - 

Molod'dtz  baba  ! 

Boy  baba  ! 

Babushka 

Duraki,  durachyo     - 

Po-babyi 

Ban'  a 

Gr6zny   - 

Ujasny    - 

Groza     - 

Grom 

Pogr6m  - 

Gremuchaya  rtut'     - 

Sinutny  - 

Ugoldvshchina 

Prestupldniye  - 

Ugolovnoye 

Golova    - 

Kaz'6nshchina 

Kazna     - 

Kaz'onny 

Kaz'onnaya,  kaz'onnoye  - 

Kaz'onnyie 

Kaz'onnaya  dusha    - 

Jidy,        jidki,        jidishki, 

jid'en'ata 

Yevrey,  yevreyi  (plur.) 
Bil'et'ik,  bil'et 
Glaz'onki,  glaza 
Glazki     - 
Glazishche 
Sapogi     - 
Vytri    sapojishchi-to, 

natoptal  ! 
Top  tat'    - 
Piskariki,  piskari 
S'edyie,  s'ed'en'kiye 
S'eryie     - 

Daleko,  dal'okon'ko 
Blizko,  bliz'ohon'ko 


ish 


BM  MGHH  yBJienaexe 
Ba6a      - 
Mojiofle^,  6a6a  ! 
Bott  6a6a  !      - 
Ba6yuiKa 


IIo 
Bane 


-  Fposa  - 


GMyTHbltt 


ITpecTynjieme 

VrojiOBHoe 

Fojiosa 


Kaana    - 


,  Kasennoe 


KaaeHHbie 


ayuia 


219 

PAOB 

-  124 

-  124 

-  126 

-  126 

-  127 

-  127 

-  127 

-  I2g 

-  129 

-  130 


132 
132 
132 
132 
133 
134 
134 
J34 
134 
134 
134 
135 
135 
135 


,    3KH- 


Espett,  espen 


,  rjiaaa 


CanorH 

BbiTpw  cano>KHinH-To,  iiuib  na 


IIHCKapH 


TonTaTb 


G-fepwe   - 

.I^ajieKo, 

BJIHBKO, 


136 
137 
139 
139 
139 
140 
140 

141 
141 
141 
142 
142 
142 
142 


220        THE  EUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


Rano 

Ranovato,  ran'ohon'ko     - 

Otchevd,  chev6 

B'ely,  b'el'en'ki 

Golubdye,  golfcben'koye    - 

Hud6y,  hud'en'ki,  hud 

Jlrny 

Poros'ata,   poros'atki,  po- 

ros'onochki 

Jirn'en'kiye,  prejirnyie 
Pojaluyt  e,  gospoda  ! 
Mogtichi 
Prekrasny 
Bystry     - 
Lovki      - 
V'echny 
Sm'ertny 
Pob'ddny 
Mirny 

Chort  vos'mi ! 
Chort  znayet ! 
B'es 

Mozgi,  Mozgl'avy 
Mozgl'aven'ki 
Mozgov6y 
Nadryv  - 
Razryv    - 
Nadlom  - 
Razldm  - 
Nadr'ez  - 
Razr'ez  - 
Nutr6m,  nutro 
Chr'evom,  chrevo 
Zapov'ed' 
Zav'et,  zav'ety 
Zav'&tny 
Or' eh  baba  !     - 
PM'a  baba  !     - 
Ogon'  baba  !    - 
Bogatyr'  baba  ! 
Tarakany 
Burlak    - 
Podpdlye 
Pokayaniye 


Pano 

PanoBaTo,  panexoHbKo 

nero 

6-fejieHLKitt 


FIopocHTa,  nopocHTKH,   nopoce 

HOHKH  - 

npe>KnpHbie          - 
,  rocnoaa  !      -         - 


BblCTpbltt 
JIOBKitt 


CMepTHbltt 


B03bMH  ! 

Hoprb  snaerb  ! 
B-fec-b  - 
Moarn, 


MoaroBott 
HaflpbiB-b 
PaapbiBi, 


Paap-fea-b 
HyxpOM-b,  nyxpo 
qpeso 


3aB-feTHbitt       - 
Optx-b  6a6a  ! 
IlyjiH  6a6a  !   - 
OroHb  6a6a  !  - 
BoraTbipb  6a6a  ! 
Tapananbi       - 
BypJiaKi, 


PAOE 
142 

M3 
H3 
M4 
144 


145 

-  145 

-  14'' 

-  14  5 

-  i45 

-  145 

-  145 

-  i45 

-  145 

-  145 

-  145 

-  148 

-  148 

-  148 

-  U9 

-  149 

-  15° 

-  15° 

-  15° 

-  is1 

-  1  5  l 

-  is1 

-  1  5  l 

-  1  54 

-  1  54 

-  J57 

-  157 

-  i59 

-  169 

-  169 

-  169 

-  169 

-  170 

-  i/1 

-  175 
179 


KUSSIAN  WORDS  AND  EXPRESSIONS 


Prost'i,  prost'it'e      - 

Proshchay,  proshchayt'e  - 

Prost'it'e,  baryn'a    - 

Prost'i,  bat'ushka  barin     - 

N'e  pominayt'e  1'ihom 

Do  sv'idanya   - 

Bog  prost'it     - 

Lih6y,  liho 

Lihoy  vrag 

Kazaki    - 

Lih6y  kazak    - 

Lihaya  sud'ba 

Lihdye  d'elo     - 

Tut  komar  n6sa  n'e  podt6- 

chit 

Liho  skachet  trdyka 
Shapka  liho  na  b'ekr'en'    - 
Udal'       - 

Silushka  bogatyrskaya 
Bat'ka    - 
Pop 

Bat'ka  prib'll  - 
Ot'etz     - 
T'at'ka   - 
Pdpik      - 

Eh,  ty,  g6r'e-bogat^r'  !      - 
Hor6shen'ki     - 
Popadya 
Kto   popa,    kto   popadyu, 

a  kto  svin6y  hvost'ik  !    - 
Kto    1'ub'it     dyn'u,     kto 

arbuz,    a    kto    pop6vu 

ddchku  ! 
V'eshni,  v'es'enn'i    -         -     BeuiHitt, 


IlpOCTH,  npOCTHTG     - 

Ilpomaft, 
IIpocTHTe, 

IlpOCTH,  6aTK)UIKa  6apHHT>  - 

He  noMHHattTe  JIHXOMT>  -         - 

J\0  CBHj;aHbH  - 

Bon>  npocTHTt        -  - 

JlHXOtt,  JIHXO  -  - 

JlHXoft  Bpan>  - 

KaaaKH  - 

Jliixott  KaaaKt  - 

Jlnxan  cya6a  - 

Jlwxoe  fl-fejio    -  - 
Ty-FL  KOMapt  Hoca  ne  noflTOHH-n, 


JInxo  cKaueTt  TpottKa 
IIIanKa  JIHXO  Ha  6eKpem> 


GnJiyuiKa 
BaTLKa 


BaTbKa  npH6Hjn> 


3xi>,  TLI,  rope-Goraxbipb  ! 
XopouieHbKitt 


KTO  nona,  KTO  nona^bio,  a  KTO 

CBHHOtt  XBOCTHKT.  !  - 

KTO  JiioSHTb  AbiHio,  KTO  ap6y3T>, 
a  KTO  nonoBy  AOHKy  !     -         - 


221 

PAGE 

179 

179 

180 

1  80 

1  80 

1  80 

1  8  1 

I8l 

183 

183 
183 
183 
183 
1  84 

1  84 
184 
191 
192 
1  99 
199 
199 

1  99 

199 

200 

202 
203 
203 

204 

204 


-     204 


FROM  THE  INTRODUCTION 

Mjflo       -  -  MLIJIO 

Pyl'  -  HbiJib      - 

Myl'ny  puzyr'  -  -  MbiJibHtift  nyatipb    - 

Dal'ni  put'       -  -  JJajibHift  nyTb 

Byt'  v  ssylke  -  -  BbiTb  BT>  CCMJIK-B 

Vys'        -  -         -  Bbicb 


xi 
xi 
xi 
xi 
xi 
xi 


222       THE  RUSSIANS  AND  THEIR  LANGUAGE 


R^b'i  jir 

-    Pu6itt  ttttipT. 

. 

Lazit'      - 

-    JlaawTb 

. 

Vyt' 

-      BblTb 

. 

Ubyl'      - 

-  vsbuib  - 

. 

B'ely  lob 

-    B'fejiLitt  Jio6i> 

- 

M'ily       - 

-    Mnjibiti   - 

. 

Myt'        - 

-      MblTb 

. 

Zyb'        - 

-    3bi6b      - 

. 

Unylayajizn'  - 

-      VHUJiaH  >KH3Hb 

Zlost'      - 

-      3jIOCTb     - 

. 

T'ep'er'  - 

-    Tenepb  - 

. 

D'et'i      - 

-      fl-BTH        - 

. 

Z'el'en'   - 

-    3ejienb  - 

. 

R'ab'      - 

-    PH(5b 

-  . 

T'em'en' 

-      TeMGHb    - 

. 

Vz'at'      - 

-      B3HTb       - 

. 

N'ed'el'a 

-    Helium  - 

. 

Zd'es'      - 

-    3,n;rBCb    - 

. 

St'ep'      - 

-    Grenb     - 

. 

L'ubov'  - 

-    JIioGoBb- 

. 

Os' 

-    Ocb 

. 

L'ud'i     - 

-      JlroflH       - 

. 

T'ech'      - 

-    TeHb      - 

. 

Pr'el'est' 

-    IIpejiecTb 

. 

D'en'gi   - 

-    UenbrH  - 

. 

D'es'at'  - 

-      JJeCHTb    - 

. 

P'er'el'et'et'     - 

-    IlepejierfeTb 

. 

Dr'an'     - 

-      JJpHHb     - 

- 

Podl'etz- 

-    IIoAJiei^'b 

. 

Brat 

-     Bpan>    - 

- 

Brat' 

-    Bpaxb    - 

. 

Von!       - 

-    BOHT>  !    - 

. 

Von' 

-      BoHb 

. 

Mol 

-    MOJIT> 

. 

Mol' 

-    Mojib 

. 

Krov      - 

-       KpOBT,     - 

- 

Krov'      - 

-      KpOBb     - 

- 

Pyl 

llmiij 

. 

Pyl'  -      - 

IlhlJIb 

- 

The  rest  of  the  Russian  words  occurring  in  the  Introduction 
given  in  Russian  type  wherever  they  come  in. 


PAGE 

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xii 

xii 

xii 

xii 

xii 

xii 

xii 

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are 


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